Rob,
I agree that 'volunteer efforts' will end up 'doing with' but I also note from the tone of your post (and from looking at some of your code) there is a recognition that documentation is an important part of the process. Having worked on other open source (and hence volunteer effort) projects I get it <G>.
I always find it hard not to reply when it is stated that 'programmers don't document'.
Thanks for the reply
DSig David Tod Sigafoos | SANMAR Corporation PICK Guy
-----Original Message----- From: mediawiki-l-bounces@lists.wikimedia.org [mailto:mediawiki-l-bounces@lists.wikimedia.org] On Behalf Of Rob Church Sent: Wednesday, April 11, 2007 7:48 To: MediaWiki announcements and site admin list Subject: Re: [Mediawiki-l] Any leads on a basic wiki setup-and-configureinstruction manual?
On 11/04/07, Dave Sigafoos davesigafoos@sanmar.com wrote:
Programmers who do not, can not or will not document haven't earned their chops. If someone is coding a system to track their groceries
at
home and they don't want to document then fine. Any time someone is working on any system, open-source, closed-source, free-ware or charge-ware, documentation is part of the job.
(sigh)
MediaWiki is a volunteer effort, and while we can complain about the quality of the people we get - and if you ask any of the junior committers, they will assert that I do so all the time - for the most part, you usually get something positive. We are, of course, in no position to reject useful contributions, even if they are not documented properly
While a good developer recognises that documenting his or her code is to everyone's benefit, we don't just have good developers; we also have people who apparently don't write a lot of code at all, or are not experienced enough to appreciate many things that can be taken for granted in a more professional context, and we have to work with them.
Rob Church
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