That's a non-issue. Any documentation that gets checked in appears on the website when the next doc dump is made, which usually happens within days of major improvements. We've tried numerous different ways to get people to contribute documentation, but it is fairly obvious that it isn't something people are interested in doing. We could perhaps fold back the five or so examples contributed to the caudium documentation site...
My bet is that readline and terminfo will remain undocumented until grubba, you or I decides to endure the pain for the benefit of mankind.
I guess I was suggesting that a "day of documentation" might be a good thing to consider. I personally hate writing documentation, but I know what it's a necessary evil and so occasionally "bit the bullet".
- Modules:
This is more of an issue. The important thing is that the module package "API" is good enough that we can live with it at least until 7.8. Is there a concise description of how a package should look like and the procedures for installing it? Such documentation is possibly a blocker, so that everyone gets the chance discover why it wouldn't work for them.
I've written a few modules that use the new "API", but I certainly don't think it's finished or tested well enough just yet. I don't think it would take a whole lot of work to do it, but I could use a little help.
Aspects to consider are
- Stand alone source package (downloaded from the Great External Module Storage (GEMS) or Pike Module Storage).
As a standalone module that's been downloaded to the local host, it seems to work well, provided it follows the "rules" from this document:
http://steam.iaeste.at/Pike/ExternalModules/PikeModules.html
I have a few things I'd like to do, such as:
include recommendations for more "metadata files" such as AUTHORS, LICENSE, etc.
add a target that prepares a module for "distribution": builds a module documentation, cleans up unnecessary files, checks for recommended metadata files, etc.
I've got a basic "repository" website set up, if anyone wants to take a look.
http://modules.gotpike.org:8000/test.html
Feel free to take a look.
- Source and binary packages for the major package formats (rpm, deb, gentoo).
Is this something that should be tied to a release? That is, are there things that need to be added in order to generate these sorts of packages, or is the idea to make them available for download along with the source? Is this even a good idea (it seems like a slippery slope; spending lots of time working on making binary packages when we could be better spending our limited time?) Just thought I'd present a potentially opposing viewpoint.
- Binary packages for Windows.
Will pike -x module even work on Windows? Perhaps under cygwin? I can understand the need for Windows binary packages, as most windows users won't have a compiler environment installed.
Bill