From: Martin A. <opt...@gm...> - 2005-08-26 22:21:34
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> Yes. Pair me up with someone. (I'm not bilingual unfortunately so that > may limit who I can work with- not sure) Consider yourself paired with me. Feel free to email me about anything. We standardise on English, don't worry. > I have a BS in Technical > Communication from Iowa State University, I'm the Presidenct of the > Central Iowa Society for Technical Communication (stc-desmoines.org - > my very first dive into plone), and I co-own a tech writing business. > You need documenters? You got 'em. ;) You rock! > Dr. Geoff Sauer at Iowa State University is introducing most of the > Tech. Comm students to Plones as we speak. He's also transitioning the > English dept. and the Tech Comm ISU websites over to Plones. The > Studio for New Media at ISU focuses a lot on working with Plones. So > in other words, we will soon have a whole crop of young, eager > documenters to help out. We just need to put a bug in their ear. > College kids will do anything they can put in their portfolios. That rocks even more! :) Can we give them some Plone-approved class credit? Tell them also than when they achieve sufficient Plone fu, there is money to be made in Plone consulting. I'm a student (for a little while longer, at least - sniff!) and this is exactly what I do. >> > End user procedures. >> >> Yes! We are painfully aware of this. If you have anything to contribute, >> *please* do. > > Most of what I will be writing will be procedures for end users. :) > You'll be seeing some documents by the end of September and even more > as we get closer to the end of the year. I'm helping set up a Plone > for a company I am consulting at and they are fully aware that I will > be sharing Plone related procedures with the community. The rocking keeps going... Will you use standard plone instances, or customised ones? Obviously, our documentation needs to target the out-of-the-box setup as much as possible. >> Yes, this is a good idea. I had in fact planned to start a thread about >> this, but figured we'd wait until 2.1 final was out for a week or so, so >> that people could evaluate with respect to that what documentation they >> saw missing. Longer term, we may be able to build something like that >> into >> the PloneHelpCenter (I have an idea how, using the Poi issue tracker). > > Cool. email me if you want help. Again, I'm not a technical person but > I'm willing to do what I can. We do. Badly. :) Perhaps the easiest thing would be if you posted here or emailed me what you have or have on the to-do list so we can find out how best to organise it? >> 5. Learning sequence. Some people would say the logical way (and in fact >> this is the chronological way experienced people have learnt) is to >> learn Python then Zope , DTML, ZPT, then CMF, then Plone, then >> Archetypes. In practice, now, a newcomer might go straight to working on >> an Archetypes class. So suddenly you need to know Archetypes, Plone, >> ZPT, Zope, ZCatalog all at the same time without linking how they sit on >> top of each other. ;-) > > > Depends on your point of view. I've learned none of that and I seem to > be getting by. Then again I'm not actually writing code. :) > > Just don't forget your audience! Keep in mind who will be reading your > documentation. Are you writing is for other developers or end users or > someone in between? Sounds simple but it makes all the difference in > the world. Yes. Most of our documentation at the moment is for developers, because people figure out how to do X and then document it. Getting contributions from end users is more difficult, because they tend to be less visible on the mailing lists or chatroom, for instance. > Perhaps we do a documentation campaign when the new version rolls out? > Something to draw attention to the need for more documentation and get > people pumped up. It's worth a shot... Indeed. We would really like to do this. JoAnna - I hope you will deliver on your promises, we could really need someone like you helping out. Anything you need, please post here or email me or talk to someone on IRC (I'm "optilude" there; Alexandere Limi/"limi" is another good one to talk to). Martin (smiling) -- (muted) |