From: Laurent Pinchart <laurent.pinchart@ideasonboard.com>
To: Shuah Khan <skhan@linuxfoundation.org>
Cc: ksummit <ksummit-discuss@lists.linuxfoundation.org>
Subject: Re: [Ksummit-discuss] [TECH TOPIC] Documentation
Date: Sat, 13 Jun 2020 20:05:54 +0300 [thread overview]
Message-ID: <20200613170554.GA14787@pendragon.ideasonboard.com> (raw)
In-Reply-To: <edbf4ead-6f2d-e548-ee40-517b3ee6ba07@linuxfoundation.org>
Hi Shuah,
On Fri, Jun 12, 2020 at 10:08:36AM -0600, Shuah Khan wrote:
> On 6/12/20 3:07 AM, Mike Rapoport wrote:
> > On Thu, Jun 11, 2020 at 11:28:09AM -0700, Joe Perches wrote:
> >> On Thu, 2020-06-11 at 12:03 -0600, Shuah Khan wrote:
> >>> People that know the sub-systems well might not
> >>> have time to document and more importantly keeping the documents
> >>> updated.
> >>
> >> So you somehow expect people that do _not_ know the
> >> sub-system well to produce good and useful documentation?
> >
> > Writing documentation is a way to learn.
>
> +1
>
> I find it useful and I also use it as learning tool. When I attempt
> document or explain a concept or an area, I get a deeper understanding
> of that area.
I only partly agree with that. I started the DRM documentation effort
because I had to write a driver, and there was no documentation. Writing
doc was indeed a way to learn, but it's a really high barrier to entry,
more difficult than "just" writing a new driver. You need a very high
level of motivation to do so, I don't think it's a suitable for someone
who has little technical knowledge of the Linux kernel for instance. It
also requires lots of time.
> > Besides, to produce good and usefull documentation it is not necessary
> > to have very deep understanding of all the small details. The writer
> > must capture the large picture and be able to explain it.
>
> +1.
>
> I would counter the argument that new developers can't document an area,
> they can and the document can be reviewed by experts.
>
> A fresh set of eyes bring a new perspective and could help improve the
> code, just like the benefits of having others test your code.
A fresh set of eyes can point to inconsistencies in the code while
writing documentation, but I don't share the view that we can consider
documentation writing as a good learning curve task in general, it
really requires lots of time and a strong incentive in addition to
documentation writing itself.
> I have had some level of success adding documentation tasks in the
> mentoring program. It does require experts spending time reviewing to
> make sure it is correct.
Are those proposed, ongoing or completed tasks ? If some are completed,
could you share information about what has been produced ?
> One thing we could do is creating a list documentation todo and review
> which is part of our development workflow anyway.
--
Regards,
Laurent Pinchart
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next prev parent reply other threads:[~2020-06-13 17:06 UTC|newest]
Thread overview: 46+ messages / expand[flat|nested] mbox.gz Atom feed top
2020-06-09 20:53 [Ksummit-discuss] [TECH TOPIC] Documentation Jonathan Corbet
2020-06-10 8:49 ` Dan Carpenter
2020-06-11 8:21 ` Daniel Vetter
2020-06-11 14:48 ` Linus Walleij
2020-06-11 18:03 ` Shuah Khan
2020-06-11 18:28 ` Joe Perches
2020-06-11 19:44 ` Shuah Khan
2020-06-12 8:18 ` Laurent Pinchart
2020-06-12 9:19 ` Mike Rapoport
2020-06-12 10:58 ` Mark Brown
2020-06-12 15:48 ` Shuah Khan
2020-06-12 9:07 ` Mike Rapoport
2020-06-12 16:08 ` Shuah Khan
2020-06-13 16:42 ` Julia Lawall
2020-06-13 16:51 ` Joe Perches
2020-06-13 17:04 ` Julia Lawall
2020-06-14 13:23 ` Matthew Wilcox
2020-06-14 14:13 ` Mike Rapoport
2020-06-15 9:46 ` Jani Nikula
2020-06-18 9:04 ` Mike Rapoport
2020-06-18 14:40 ` Joe Perches
[not found] ` <20200709122118.0ffaea91@coco.lan>
2020-07-09 11:42 ` Joe Perches
2020-07-09 12:11 ` Mike Rapoport
2020-07-09 16:59 ` Joe Perches
2020-07-09 17:29 ` Mike Rapoport
2020-07-09 17:57 ` Andrew Lunn
[not found] ` <104986.1594328429@turing-police>
2020-07-10 0:03 ` Joe Perches
2020-06-13 17:05 ` Laurent Pinchart [this message]
2020-06-18 9:08 ` Mike Rapoport
-- strict thread matches above, loose matches on Subject: below --
2019-06-12 14:54 Jonathan Corbet
2019-06-12 18:22 ` Shuah Khan
2019-06-12 19:12 ` Martin K. Petersen
2019-06-12 19:43 ` Shuah Khan
2019-06-13 14:25 ` Mauro Carvalho Chehab
2019-06-14 21:40 ` Shuah Khan
2019-06-15 0:05 ` Mauro Carvalho Chehab
2019-06-17 10:12 ` Mauro Carvalho Chehab
2019-06-17 17:21 ` Mauro Carvalho Chehab
2019-06-12 20:33 ` Kate Stewart
2019-06-13 14:17 ` Mauro Carvalho Chehab
2019-06-13 14:57 ` Mauro Carvalho Chehab
2019-06-13 18:48 ` Greg KH
2019-06-13 19:01 ` Mauro Carvalho Chehab
2019-06-20 18:36 ` Kees Cook
2019-06-20 19:28 ` Jonathan Corbet
2019-07-22 14:52 ` Mauro Carvalho Chehab
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