[PD] translate the Start Here! page

[Jonathan Wilkes]

----- Original Message -----
> From: Pierre-Olivier Boulant <po.boulant at free.fr>
> To: Ed Kelly <morph_2016 at yahoo.co.uk>
> Cc: Jonathan Wilkes <jancsika at yahoo.com>; Hans-Christoph Steiner <hans at at.or.at>; Pd List <pd-list at iem.at>
> Sent: Saturday, January 5, 2013 5:46 AM
> Subject: Re: [PD] translate the Start Here! page
> 
> 
> On 05/01/2013 02:47, Ed Kelly wrote:
>>>  Also notice that neither you nor I are the least bit interested in 
> fixing these
>>>  problems in the FLOSS manual, and we're especially not interested 
> in taking
>>>  it on as a long term project.  Who does that leave?  If it leaves 
> anyone
>>>  wouldn't their time be better spent fixing the doc problems listed 
> on the
>>>  tracker
>>>  than etching in stone a description of a moving target?
>> 
>>  Well, if you have to teach Pd to art students who are used to using 
> Photoshop and Final Cut Pro (as I do) the FLOSS manual page is very useful to 
> give them some idea of what the objects are. It may not be 100% accurate, but at 
> least it is (only) a start. I do hope that the search mechanism replaces static 
> docs conceptually, but here is why they should be kept.
>> 
>>  Learning Pd from scratch is not easy unless you are already a computer 
> scientist. "How do I know what the objects are called" is I agree, the 
> wrong question in so many ways. However, 80% of my undergraduate students 
> basically give up at that point if they can't find the answer, and probably 
> 60% of my masters students, often after saying "I hate Pd". This 
> question usually comes up in the first lesson. I could criticise them for this, 
> except that there is an impression that Pd is "open" as well as 
> open-source. Is it? Or is it highly elitist? I think it can be both, but I 
> don't want to kick away the ladder...
>> 
>>  Perhaps the problem lies more with "standards" for documentation 
> across the whole community - it's never going to happen (remember Pdpedia?) 
> because the Pd community can be somewhat anarchic. Hats off to Hans - making 
> Pd-extended work is like nailing jelly to the wall I guess.
>> 
>>  There are some small things we could do. For example, a description of what 
> lies in each folder of externals and what they are for may well be enough, 
> followed by a list of objects. My students are _scared_ of Pd because it is so 
> utterly different to anything else they have ever engaged with. A bit of 
> documentation that isn't in Pd itself eases the pain somewhat.
>> 
>>  A static web page will never be up-to-date since the pd externals folder is 
> always a moving target. But it is better than nothing. It was really hard 
> persuading students to learn Pd when Flossmanuals didn't exist. It's 
> still hard, but it does open some doors to my students.
>> 
>>  Ed
>> 
>>>  -Jonathan
>>> 
>>>>    .hc
> 
> 
> I agree this is something useful despite all that has been said. It's 
> not perfect or up to date, but it's really better than nothing.
> It is also a bit easier to access for non-English speakers since you can 
> translate theses lists (not the object names - yet ;) )

But it's the Pd FLOSS manual object list-- and only that-- which I'm addressing.
If it's not yet translated then it is _worse_ than using the search plugin,
because it leaves out info about which objects belong to which libraries and
is already out of date as to which objects are in Pd extended.

Please spend as much time as you want/can to maintain everything else in the
Pd FLOSS manual, and please spend zero time "improving" the big out-of-date
object list because that's time better spent working on the actual Pd
documentation.  Look at anything in the tracker that includes the word
"documentation":

http://sourceforge.net/tracker/?group_id=55736&atid=478070&source=navbar

> But Search and 
> help-patches are limited to English for the moment.

Search has already been translated to a couple of languages.

-Jonathan

> 
> pob
>