[Xapian-discuss] xapian wiki

[Olly Betts]

On Fri, Mar 17, 2006 at 09:52:16AM -0500, Peter Masiar wrote:
> Olly Betts wrote:
> >I'm not sure I want to make a net connection a requirement for updating
> >documentation though.
> 
> You don't have to require wiki updates. It is just yet another, quick 
> way to keep docs up-to-date.

That's not what I mean.

If I (or someone else doing development work) writes code for a new
feature on a laptop or other non-networked machine, then we can't easily
add corresponding documentation as we write the code.

About the best we could do is to write it into a temporary file and hope
we remember to paste it into the wiki later, but then you can't proof
read the documentation in the HTML form (unless you also install the
wiki software) and it's problematic if you want to extend an existing
document (if someone modifies it on the live wiki and then you paste
your version over the top, their contribution is lost).

Many developers need little excuse to shirk writing documentation, so
this would inevitably end up with more features being added without
adequate documentation in the first place, which is a retrograde step.

Cheers,
    Olly