DevApp Content Life-cycle [was: Re: Wiki ideas]

[Jeff Schering]

On Apr 1, 2005 3:55 AM, Sean Wheller <sean at inwords.co.za> wrote:
> On Friday 01 April 2005 11:11, Mark Shuttleworth wrote:
> > Let's see what we can get done at UDU, but in parallel, let's see what
> > you guys come up with.
> 
> Hello Mark, Corey,
> 
snip snip...

> this. We have an itch for a system that combines the power docbook >with the
> ease of use and low barrier to entry experienced under web-based apps, 

Hi Sean

A wiki page with docbook source.
A wiki page with a comments section.

If contributors don't want to jump the docbook barrier, then they
simply add a comment to the wiki page. The comments could be as simple
as "It's 5.04, not 5.40". They could also be a bit more complicated,
such as "The paragraph 'blah blah blah...' should be changed to 'yadda
yadda yadda...' ". Someone knowledgable in docbook will then
incorporate the comments into the docbook source, and then transfer
the comment to the history page.

Maybe call the comments "Document Change Notice" (DCN). Give each DCN
a serial number, have it added to a list of things to do (or emailed
to the doc list perhaps?), and if contributors leave an email address,
then send them a happy thank-you message when their change is
incorporated.

A whole process could be worked up to maintain good configuration
management and version control of the docs. The only part that can't
be automated is the incorporation of wiki page comments into the
docbook source.

The wiki page content + comments will always be the latest.

An added side benefit is that potential long term contributers will
get exposed to docbook early on as they may soon tire of adding
comments, and just dive into the docbook source just one click away.
They may find that it's easy to work on docbook without knowing all of
docbook.

Another benefit is that contributors won't have to bother themselves
with svn and whatnot. They simply work on the wiki page's docbook
source, and the rest is taken care of in the background. With this
method, writers write, and developers develop. Writers won't have to
learn developer's tools such as svn.

What do you think? Am I missing something obvious? It sounds so simple.

Cheers,
Jeff