[linux-audio-user] some thoughts about Linux audio software documentation

[Pete Bessman]

At Fri, 13 Aug 2004 15:16:30 +0100,
tim hall wrote:
> 
> Last Friday 13 August 2004 00:55, Pete Bessman was like:
> > However, I am but one dude.  Post 1.0, I can help out more generally,
> > but at the moment I am focused on Specimen, and every minute I
> > contribute to another project is a minute I'm not contributing to my
> > own.  I don't say this to be competitive, simply to reinforce the fact
> > that improving our abysmal doc situation isn't something you can
> > really expect most developers to help with; at least not so long as
> > their own app is still critically incomplete.
> 
> Do you want some help writing the docs then?

YES!

Hell, ask any developer here that question and you'll get the same
answer.  Docs are always appreciated.  However, as I said before,
Specimen is getting a complete UI overhaul, so any docs you write now
probably won't be relevant in a month or so.

I am *not* trying to look a gift horse in the mouth here, but if you
*really* want to help I think I have a better idea.

Make some music (real music, finished stuff), and write docs on what
you had to do to make this music.  Start from the beginning:

--What distro did you install, and on what hardware?

--What configuration steps did you need to perform?

--What applications did you use, and how did you install and configure
  them?

--How did you use all these pieces to make music?

If there are any docs out there like this, I'm not aware of them.
They would be an *immense* contribution, both by showing potential
users how they can make music with Linux, and by showing developers
the strengths and weaknesses of the scene as it currently is.

Speaking for myself, the first thing I look for when checking out
music apps is music created with said apps.  What does it sound like?
The linux-sound.org music page has only 24 entries, and I'm NOT
FLINGING MUD HERE (my own stuff sucks), but we're certainly not giving
any indication of the utility of our software with them.  This is
because we have two many hackers and not enough UNIT-Es.

I firmly believe that the biggest, most valuable contribution anybody
not currently wrapped up in a project can make to Linux audio is
making music with this stuff, and writing a few example docs to get
new users up to speed rapidly.  If you, or anyone, or better yet,
*everyone* did this, our scene would be a magnificently better place.

-- 
Pete

www.gazuga.net

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* The title."

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