[Pdweb] please put the dev docs back

[IOhannes m zmoelnig]

hi.

Hans-Christoph Steiner wrote:
> 
> On Sep 26, 2006, at 6:26 AM, IOhannes m zmoelnig wrote:
>>
>> after all, the /dev section IS "documentation about development", and 
>> not "development" itself.
> 
> By that standard then everything on the web is documentation.  We are 
> using a narrower definition which makes a lot more sense.  Manuals, 
> HOWTOs, tutorials, these are documentation.  Everything in 
> /docs/developer was a HOWTO, manual, or tutorial

like http://puredata.info/docs/developer/sourcenotes ?

> 
> The developer section is meant for developer tools: key links, 
> bugtrackers, wikis for project management, etc.  The content in the 
> wikis will probably ultimately end up being boiled down to docs, but 
> they are not there yet.  The bugtracker is documentation on bugs, but it 
> is not a manual, howto, or tutorial.
> 
> Please read the archives for a more in depth discussion.

i did so.
the discussion has taken place in 2003 when the site was set up.
i do believe that several things in this design did not work out.

>> so in theory(!) i see no reason to have 2 separate branches with the 
>> same topic but different content.

i still don't.
even if there is some artificial segregation line between the 2 
branches, which i could memorize.
if i want to know what is going on in "development" (e.g. what's on in 
pddp, or how the exact cvs download command was) i will just click on 
the "development" tab (and not just me as a "noob" who just wants to 
browse the information, but me as somebody who has worked for years with 
the website's current structure).

>>
>> however, you are completely right: in practice there are external 
>> links pointing to the old & deprecated location, which must be handled.
>> the good thing is, that this could be handled very easily: i can set 
>> up a rewrite rule on the webserver, so that 
>> http://puredata.org/doc/dev is automatically redirected to 
>> http://puredata.org/dev which should make all the links valid again.
> 
> We discussed this stuff at length when we set up the website (check the 
> archives).  Its been working well as far as I've seen.  I see no reason 
> to change it now.

the discussion has taken place in 2003 when the site was set up.
i don't think that it has been working so well.

>> why i didn't ask? because we are really bad at decision-making. most 
>> discussions stop at the point where "everybody" (this is: you, me, 
>> probably a single 3rd person) has clarified their poisition.
> 
> It takes 10 seconds to send such an email.  It would have saved us all a 
> lot of time and hassle.

how much time have you lost through this hazzle? (esp. when writing an 
email takes you just 10 secs)


if the docs/development/ section is really just meant as a selection of 
how-to's, tutorials and manuals, then why don't we just use some 
autocollector, that grabs all tutorials,... from /dev/  (and wherever).


just to reiterate why i do this:
(overlapping) information is kept in 2 separate places.
information therefore gets duplicated (cloned).
maintainment of the cloned information usually only effects one branch, 
resulting in either divergent information, outdated information (in one 
branch).
information that does not get duplicated is missing in one branch.


mfg.asdr.
IOhannes

PS: your old links should now at least work.