[LAD] Linux Audio Documentaion Effort : (Was "Question 0")

[Philipp Überbacher]

Excerpts from Harry van Haaren's message of 2011-11-28 01:31:50 +0100:
> Following recent emails on list about documentation and learning "Linux
> Audio Programming", I've been thinking about an effort to help people get
> started with Linux Audio Coding.
> 
> I think some "beginner" coding documentation on Linux Audio would be a
> great asset to the community, and I'm willing to contribute to such an
> effort. As Robin Gareus mentioned in another thread, a "FLOSS" manual is
> probably the best way to go for a community effort on documenting.
> 
> I've been doing some "tutorial" style  programming articles on my blog
> harryhaaren.blogspot.com and I'd have no problem sharing the examples there
> (some basic GTK stuff, some small JACK apps, combining the GUI / JACK stuff
> ). Problem is that I was learning as I was going along, and there are some
> *fundamental* issues with some of the tutorials (especially with regards to
> thread safe code & more advanced programming concepts)
> 
> Personally I'd be even more enthusiastic about such an effort if some of
> the veteran Linux audio guys were to get on board and ensure the content is
> of a high quality. (As I'm a self though programmer, there are some big
> gaps in my knowledge, and I'd not like to provide bad sample code, or share
> bad concepts.)
> 
> Of course some issues will arise in choosing how to document Linux Audio,
> and some typical "flame" topics like GUI toolkits, libraries etc will
> arise. I have no idea how we can best avoid that issue, except by following
> the "if you think it should be thought that way write the tutorial"...  the
> downside of this is that if one tutorial uses toolkit <X> and the next
> toolkit <Y>, the average beginning coder is going to get lost in
> implementation details and that defeats the purpose of documentation :D
> 
> -Harry

It's a good idea, I hope it will work out.

A few thoughts:
- An easy way for those following the tutorial to give feedback or
  improve the tutorial.
- An easy way for the experts to improve the tutorial.
- On the less technical side, I hope that experts will look it over and
  improve it.
- I hope those using it will be able to show their appreciation so the
  thing as a whole stays alive and keeps developing.

Personally, I'm looking forward to it. I do take a C/C++ course this 
semester so I deal with the necessary languages at least once a week.
More importantly I've started to learn how to just write the code, if
you know what I mean.
I guess I have enough knowledge for simple audio coding now, but I've
yet to find/take the time to try it. I'm looking forward to it though.

Thanks for your effort,

Regards, Philipp