Pick Books / Wiki / Documentation

[Tony Gravagno]

On Mon, 15 Apr 2019, Peter McMurray wrote:
>> However I have a treasure trove of manuals that I am tentative about
>> tossing out as they built our life.

GeneB responded:

> Please don't toss it, scan it.  If you can't scan it, pass it on to
> someone that can.  I'd be happy to help.  I actually built a book scanner
> in order to scan documentation.
> Here's a video I did that shows the workflow.

> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=niwLAbgRpDE

Gene - that's truly Awesome!

I have some Pick books here, a few of them in French. Over the years many people have offered their books to a good home.

For many years I have SOOO wanted to initiate an effort to collect MV books, and with proper permission, scan and republish.

So much time has been spent by Jon Sisk, Harvey Rodstein, Matt Stern, Malcolm Bull, Brian Speirs, and others to document this platform for the benefit of newcomers. Yes, all such material needs to be updated, much of it is outdated, but the core of what's been written still applies in most platforms, and can be used as Fundamentals material, as a base on which more detail can be built.

Note, this isn't about videos or training classes. Videos are one medium. OnSite training is another. Both of them are valid. Discuss them in other threads. In this modern world it's been said that people don't read books anymore. That's just not true. Technicians need end-to-end training material to eliminate hundreds of hours of hunt and peck through forums, blogs, and sparse API details. We need start-to-finish material that goes deep into the what is available and how it all works. We don't Google because we want to, we Google because we need to, because people aren't writing books like they used to. Reference material is not the same as a book. There are more people in tech today and there is a lot more money involved in tech today, but writers are simply not motivated the way they used to be for spending their time in this way. This is all a discussion for some other forum. My focus is on what to do with the situation that exists. I'm focusing on end-to-end Introduction to Pick, with branches to Advanced Usage, specialties like Spooler and Tape and Indexing, Security, OS integration, email, telephony, and on to deep coverage of integration from outside with libraries, GUI, web services, SQL, mobile, and everything else that challenges the modern developer.

Technically, as to how to extract text from existing printed material : See Gene's video as one option. Selective re-entry by hand is another. Existing material doesn't need to be copied verbatim, and that is mostly undesirable in an effort to aggregate material from different sources. Let's say the usage of existing material is not a technical problem but more of a consideration when it comes to decisions and usage of the intent, phrasing, structures, examples, and other creative mental exercises of these writers, that eventually found their way into some published work. Extraction of text from a printed page is not the real problem. The real challenges involve what to do with the content that is available, and about getting people to actually do the work.

PickWiki v1.0 was in the old wiki software. v2.0 was published MediaWiki with the intent to create book sections which could then be filled in by anyone with time and knowledge. That raw material would be vetted by colleagues, and periodic releases would be issued for consumers of the material. The material can be published as PDF, Ebook, and in hardcopy. Purchases/Donations can be used to fund the effort.

Zumasys took over PickWiki, let's call that v3.0, and assumed responsibility for its maintenance. With no resources to actually do that maintenance, it has sat now for some years as merely a corporate-branded website for what should be a neutral industry resource. That was Not the intent, and the offer has been extended by Zumasys to rehost the wiki in a way that makes sense to all parties. So perhaps the v2 initiative can be renewed in an upcoming v4.

That's not the only option. Material doesn't need to be maintained in the public domain. That's just my way of suggesting a no-cost way of getting a lot of eyes and effort on it. With proper transfer of licenses some entity could do all of this for-profit. If not a community effort, with real results, then someone must be motivated to spend the time and money required to make this happen.

Since an effort like this is intended to benefit the industry, I would hope that industry leaders would share the costs required to support it. The DBMS providers have the most to gain when more people learn how to use the platform. That's not the way it works in the rest of the world ... but this isn't the rest of the world. Until the effort of book writing has the same sort of benefits that it did in past decades, individuals will not take on the effort themselves, and so, it simply will not be done unless there is other motivation.

The DBMS providers could actually save money by sponsoring an effort like this. Right now each company pays employees to write fundamentals information. (Well, let's pretend they do because it's too embarrassing if they need to admit that they don't, and it kinda accentuates the reason why this needs to be done outside of their direct influence. Ahem...) The money spent to support third-party documentation could come from Marketing funds. Their people can then focus on a reduced documentation set with platform-specific details that are not yet included in third-party material. It would also be to their Marketing advantage to have platform-specific nuances documented in vendor-neutral publications.

For proprietary documentation, DBMS providers that help to support Common documentation could license that material and add their own proprietary nuances to it for distribution with their own products. Don't support the effort, and the Common docs would be available for one price ... Support the ongoing effort and the price for using that material would be a lot better.

Let's not leave application providers out of that. A project like this is also to their benefit. "Who uses this platform? I've never heard of it. Where can we learn something about it? How do I write my own reports?...." There would be great value to any company that could give/sell their clients a book with their package. Today, what do we have? QM-specific tutorials from Brian. An old downloadable PDF from Jon. Reference material from the DBMS providers. If you're lucky you might be able to find Malcolm's material - with an ala-carte fee. And yes, there are a couple museum-quality books that you might be able to get off Amazon if you're lucky. Welcome to the Pick industry! This is one of the main reasons why we lose end-users. Application developers should want to improve this condition.

To refine the point about funding and sponsorship : Someone needs to be motivated to make this happen. People won't do it out of the kindness of their hearts. They won't write anymore as an investment of time with the hope of selling books later - that model worked in the past and perhaps in the future, not now. Writers won't publish a book to create a calling card for themselves, for self-marketing, etc, which is how it works in the rest of the world. (Trust me, I know, even huge and expensive books on topics like .NET do not earn the kind of money that people would like to believe.) People won't write books out of some sense of grassroots fandom for the platform - the DBMS providers might like to think that but that kind of spirit just doesn't exist here anymore ... maybe later. We know these things to be true because we are where we are. Time has proven these theories to be truths. So we must rely on concrete motivation. It doesn't matter if some entity is doing this full-time or not, or if they're doing it for cash or licenses or some other recompense. But the reality is now that writers for Pick/MV will not take a risk in this industry. Their/Our adversion to risk has increased as the popularity of the platform has decreased. So now other options are required.

Are any of the DBMS providers lurking here thinking some of this might be to their advantage? If not, just note that what you have hasn't been working for the last couple decades, so a new approach of some kind is strongly recommended.

Since I've been wanting to do this anyway, I'll toss this on the table : I've been scaling back Nebula R&D business for various reasons including the creation of a couple new initiatives. I could focus energy on documentation, sort of as a vendor to the industry. There would need to be some minimum required aggregate budget per year, sponsored through Patreon and/or normal direct client/vendor relationships. In addition to providing motivation, that funding would be used to license existing material ... of course with some initial determinations about whether available material is worth renovation and republication. I'm not leading with this concept of doing it myself. I'm saying this is one way for this to happen, and I'd be as happy or even moreso if someone else could deliver high quality results in a project with such a scope.

This whole thing is just one idea to get something on the table for better industry documentation.

Are there any good ideas in any of this? Anything actionable?

Add to it. Suggest some other ways to motivate people for effort and material.

Suggest something completely different!

"Lead, follow, or get out of the way." :)

Thanks,

T

[geneb]

On Tue, 21 May 2019, Tony Gravagno wrote:

> On Mon, 15 Apr 2019, Peter McMurray wrote:
>>> However I have a treasure trove of manuals that I am tentative about
>>> tossing out as they built our life.
>
> GeneB responded:
>> Please don't toss it, scan it. If you can't scan it, pass it on to
>> someone that can. I'd be happy to help. I actually built a book scanner
>> in order to scan documentation.
>> Here's a video I did that shows the workflow.
>> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=niwLAbgRpDE
>
> Gene - that's truly Awesome!
>

Thanks Tony!

>
> I have some Pick books here, a few of them in French. Over the years many
> people have offered their books to a good home.
> For many years I have SOOO wanted to initiate an effort to collect MV
> books, and with proper permission, scan and republish.

From my standpoint, it's history to be saved. If it'll stand still long
enough to scan, I'm going to scan it. If the publisher doesn't
like it, they can file a DMCA request with the Internet Archive.

I've got something like 4-7 Pick related books in my scan queue - and that
doesn't include the boxes of Revelation G & Advanced Revelation docs I
have. :) Unfortunately, I don't know when I'll get at them - summer tends
to be my /really/ crazy projects season. ;) It may wait until I build the
second iteration of the scanner.

g.

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