From kde-devel  Sun Jul 20 12:42:55 2003
From: Holger Schroeder <holger-kde () holgis ! net>
Date: Sun, 20 Jul 2003 12:42:55 +0000
To: kde-devel
Subject: Re: new KDE Development book
X-MARC-Message: https://marc.info/?l=kde-devel&m=105870514021690

Hi,

after thinking about this for some time, i want to share my thoughts ;-)

it would be cool, if this book would evolve to something like _the book_ for 
everything kde. i had the idea to propose to use kword for writing it for 
testing how useful koffice already is. that would be quite good PR for 
kde/koffice, but it is not the best choice, when the project is spread over 
many people from the beginning.

imho the project should not try to be finished somewhen, it should be the 
book, that accompanies the kde software, and perhaps it should carry the kde 
version numbers, like "The KDE Development Book Version 3.2" or so.
that would show people that this is not something, that is already outdated, 
when the next kde version comes out, but that one can always download the 
most actual version of it. so it could become something like _the_ reference 
documentation for kde.
the introduction to C++ and Qt and KDE are areas, which will be written once, 
and probably not changed any more, once they are finished. but other areas, 
which will change over time in kde itself, should also be covered in the book 
in depth, and so would also change in the book over time. so there should be 
a changelog, which states, which chapters are changed from version to 
version. so people could download only these chapters in the actual version, 
and replace the then outdated chapters in their printed docs to keep them 
actual.

of course it sounds like a lot of work, but i think it is worth the effort to 
cover all of kde in depth in different chapters. preferably the chapters 
should be written or at least reviewed by the people, which have written the 
corresponding sources in kde.
this way we would have a single source for information for people which want 
to work on kde. it would be cool to give the book to some kde newbies, which 
want to learn programming, and say something like "when you read this and 
understand it, you know all about kde". i don't remember any other project, 
which offers this. it would make life easier for the developers and the 
developer-wannabees, as developers can refer to the book in answers to 
questions like "for that problem read chapter 23 in the book, it is about 
exactly your problem, and come back if you still have problems". developer 
wannabees can skip through the book before asking the questions, and find the 
answer alone without needing time from the other people. of course this is 
all dependent on the quality of the chapters and the examples, but i think 
this will work out nicely.

the "main source" of the book should be written in english, and from there be 
translated into other languages, and not be written in german, then 
translated to english, and from there into other languages, as that would 
lead to more errors.

the book should be organized in a way, that there is a introduction into c, 
c++, qt and kde, and one would have to work through all these chapters in 
order to understand them. all the rest of the book should be divided into 
chapters, where each chapter covers one area of kde, and in the beginning of 
each chapter there should be a note, which says on which chapters this 
chapter depends. so people would get answers to their areas of interest in 
the most effective way without having to read through a lot of stuff, which 
doesn't interest them atm.

the book would be really cool, if all the contents on developer.kde.org would 
somehow end up being covered in depth in the book. that would be something we 
could be proud of.

thanks, Holger


 
>> Visit http://mail.kde.org/mailman/listinfo/kde-devel#unsub to unsubscribe <<