Re: How to port applets to GNOME2 (again)

[John Fleck <jfleck inkstain net>]

On Sun, 2003-03-16 at 04:46, Ole Laursen wrote:
> 
> I do think that maintainers such as Mark are doing a fantastic job.
> It's just so frustrating that we have all this exciting technology
> that is made unnecessarily hard to use because the documentaion is
> lacking or tucked in an obscure place in the CVS. If we are going to
> take over the world, it is not because of the exciting technology. It
> is because of all the great applications that are using the
> technology.
> 
> So I'm gently trying to apply some pressure to the knowledgeable
> hackers here. :-) Perhaps the Bugzilla would be a better place?

And I'm trying to suggest that you're applying the pressure in the wrong
place. The hackers maintaining the core modules are always swamped. We
all know that GNOME would be well served by improved developer
documentation. This is a perennial issue. Pointing that out helps
nothing. Getting the hackers to stop hacking and write docs simply isn't
going to happen. What is required to fix the problem is for people to
write docs. History suggests that in many cases that's a new volunteer,
not one of the core modules maintainers, jumping in to help. You said in
the mail that started this little side-thread that the gnome-panel
applet tutorial is misleading and apparently outdated. Lots of people
have apparently overcome that and written applets successfully. If one
of them had taken the time required to apply that knowledge to rewriting
the tutorial and submitting the patch, we'd have better docs. Writing
developer docs is a great way to learn more about the core technologies,
and it's a great way to help the community.

You said in one of your earlier mails that you have contributed
documentation to gtkmm. That's good. That means you're part of the
solution. We need more of that.

Cheers,
John
-- 
John Fleck
jfleck inkstain net (h) jfleck abqjournal com (w)
http://www.inkstain.net http://www.abqjournal.com

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