So, what?
Alexander Gladysh
It's been too quiet here for a few weeks...
Come on, we need to finish TOC! :-)
Let's find a place to the last few homeless items, and let's discuss
what we've got!
Does it match the cookbook format? If not, should we change the book
format or the TOC?
Should we remove some TOC items? Add more?
Alexander.
steve donovan
> It's been too quiet here for a few weeks...
Well, we are basically a bunch of cats, who wander off occaisionally
to find other sardines.
I would like to kick off with contributing an introduction to the
basics. There is some excellent material in the lua-users wiki
tutorial section, which naturally I will lean on. About ten pages
seems like a right length.
A pedagogical point; I find the interactive prompt very instructive,
but know that it's not the way to start. (Increasingly people seem
allergic to prompts anyway.)
Any comments, before I start typing away madly?
steve d.
Alexander Gladysh
> On Tue, Jan 25, 2011 at 12:10 AM, Alexander Gladysh <agla...@gmail.com> wrote:
>> It's been too quiet here for a few weeks...
> Well, we are basically a bunch of cats, who wander off occaisionally
> to find other sardines.
That's to be expected, of course — so I try to provide a push (when
I'm not looking for sardines myself, of course). :-)
> I would like to kick off with contributing an introduction to the
> basics. There is some excellent material in the lua-users wiki
> tutorial section, which naturally I will lean on. About ten pages
> seems like a right length.
Would be great, no problem with that. Introduction would be needed in
any case. You're welcome to start writing it right away.
* * *
But besides writing actual content, there are some conceptual
questions, like the TOC. Do you care to discuss them?
For example, we have this little page:
https://github.com/lua-cookbook/lua-cookbook/wiki/The-table-of-contents
Maybe you do have comments on it?
I'd really like to get a discussion going!
> A pedagogical point; I find the interactive prompt very instructive,
> but know that it's not the way to start. (Increasingly people seem
> allergic to prompts anyway.)
Not sure what do you mean here — interactive prompt in a book?
> Any comments, before I start typing away madly?
What format should we use? RST? I guess that Sphinx fork is the one
most ready production-wise. Other pipelines do not seem to have enough
supporters who are ready to get involved. :-)
https://github.com/leafstorm/lua-cookbook
Alexander.
steve donovan
> What format should we use? RST? I guess that Sphinx fork is the one
> most ready production-wise.
Ah, but Markdown is so _simple_ - my fingers know it already. They
don't hesitate to use backticks to indicate code, or indent for
examples, or using underscores for emphasis. And pandoc seems to be a
pretty sophisticated processor compared to markdown.lua.
(I'm sure somebody will come up with a script to convert Markdown into
the 'official' format at some point ;))
I think it's more of a priority to get content, and then we can look
at structure.
steve d.
Alexander Gladysh
> On Tue, Jan 25, 2011 at 11:14 AM, Alexander Gladysh <agla...@gmail.com> wrote:
>> What format should we use? RST? I guess that Sphinx fork is the one
>> most ready production-wise.
> Ah, but Markdown is so _simple_ - my fingers know it already. They
> don't hesitate to use backticks to indicate code, or indent for
> examples, or using underscores for emphasis.
Same for RST, no?
> And pandoc seems to be a
> pretty sophisticated processor compared to markdown.lua.
Nobody cared to prove that it is possible to get the logical
formatting we need with Markdown:
https://github.com/lua-cookbook/lua-cookbook/wiki/The-format
> (I'm sure somebody will come up with a script to convert Markdown into
> the 'official' format at some point ;))
No script needed — we have pandoc.
> I think it's more of a priority to get content, and then we can look
> at structure.
I agree. If you have an urge to write, by all means, don't let format
and other organizational issues to stop you from that!
Contribute whatever you have, we can always fix it up later.
Alexander.
Alexander Gladysh
> On Tue, Jan 25, 2011 at 12:18, steve donovan <steve.j...@gmail.com> wrote:
>> On Tue, Jan 25, 2011 at 11:14 AM, Alexander Gladysh <agla...@gmail.com> wrote:
>>> What format should we use? RST? I guess that Sphinx fork is the one
>>> most ready production-wise.
>> Ah, but Markdown is so _simple_ - my fingers know it already. They
>> don't hesitate to use backticks to indicate code, or indent for
>> examples, or using underscores for emphasis.
> Same for RST, no?
See here:
https://github.com/leafstorm/lua-cookbook/raw/master/en/source/installing/linux_install.rst
Alexander.
steve donovan
> It's been too quiet here for a few weeks...
I've just pushed up a first draft of an introduction
https://github.com/stevedonovan/lua-cookbook/blob/master/src/book/en_US/intro.md
For the moment, let's not worry about the markup but the content. It's
still quite 'bony' and needs more flesh.
There are points where I felt that going into _too much_ detail was
not a good idea. Lua string patterns are a big subject, I don't think
an introduction should get obsessed with them.
You will also notice that there is no mention of metatables and
metamethods; I might get around to them, but it is entirely possible
to be a competent user of Lua without knowing metatables - they are a
more advanced topic.
steve d.
Alexander Gladysh
> On Tue, Jan 25, 2011 at 12:10 AM, Alexander Gladysh <agla...@gmail.com> wrote:
>> It's been too quiet here for a few weeks...
> I've just pushed up a first draft of an introduction
> https://github.com/stevedonovan/lua-cookbook/blob/master/src/book/en_US/intro.md
Thank you, Steve! That's a good start! I left a few comments (all to
be considered as IMHO, of course, sorry I saved a few keystrokes and
did not type it explicitly).
Before you continue your work, please, let's discuss TOC a bit. I feel
that you did not look at the TOC draft before you started to write.
What we have as a TOC draft is by no means mandatory or anything — and
I do not want to subdue creativity with bureaucracy — but I'd love to
see at least minimal coordination of effort.
If you don't like what we have in TOC, no problem, but say it (or even
change TOC directly — that is a free for all wiki)!
Thank you again,
Alexander.