[mythtv-users] MythFrontend 0.21: What is a watch list?

Michael T. Dean mtdean at thirdcontact.com
Tue Mar 11 21:22:17 UTC 2008


On 03/11/2008 09:13 AM, Jay Mallar wrote:
> Jay R. Ashworth wrote:
>   
>> On Mon, Mar 10, 2008 at 01:38:33AM -0400, David Kramer wrote:
>>> Thanks.  Pointers where to R the FM are welcome.
>> The FMs will take a while to catch up, I suspect.  :-)
>>
>> If you want to *write* the FM, you can go hit the wiki. 
> I get the point of open source.  I get that this is a community 
> project.  But gosh darnet, if you have the time to add the feature to 
> the code, you have the time to write up a quick document for the rest of 
> us so we know how to use it.

Sure, devs have the time.  *However*, they may chose to instead spend 
the time they would have spent writing up great documentation to write 
other great features.

>   One of the biggest problems I have with 
> most open source projects is this lack of documentation or the 
> assumption that documentation should be done by someone other than 
> whoever made the change.

And, why not?  Obviously the MythTV devs have the ability to write 
code.  Sure, they also have the ability to write documentation.  
However, a lot of people who use MythTV (and many of whom would like to 
contribute back to the community) do /not/ have the the 
(already-developed) skills to write code, but do have the ability to 
write documentation.  Therefore, since we don't require the devs to 
write documentation but instead allow other (non-coding) contributors to 
write documentation, we get /more/ people working on MythTV and, 
therefore, get more time invested in the project and, therefore, get 
more done.  (As I'm sure you're agree, the devs only have so much time 
they /can/ devote to the project, so encouraging others to help means we 
get more done.)

>   How am I supposed to know what someone else 
> added, much less how it works?

Reading what documentation they did provide (whether in the form of 
commit messages or nice "informal" descriptions that have gone to the 
lists or whatever), reading the help text on the relevant settings, 
trial and error, and--most importantly--through documenting, peer 
review, and revisions.

And, it all boils down to the fact that 0.21 (which is the first stable 
version with a Watch List) was just released.  Therefore, a lot of 
people--including you--are just now starting to figure it out, so no one 
has yet written any documentation for it.  Give it a couple of months, 
and there will be some great wiki entries.  If you're really concerned 
about all these features that exist in 0.21 that aren't yet documented, 
perhaps you should wait until SP1 to upgrade...

Oh, and BTW, I just have to mention that Bruce is one of the most 
conscientious developers in Myth when it comes to writing good HOWTO ( 
http://mythtv.org/docs/ ) documentation for the features he adds.  
Probably much of the reason for this is because the features he's 
involved with adding tend to be some of the most complex features in 
Myth (i.e. he's very deeply involved in the scheduler).  Huge sections 
of the HOWTO covering things like Advanced Recording Options and Custom 
Priorities have been drafted by Bruce.  Other devs probably also 
contributed documentation to the HOWTO.  And, Robert Kulagowski does an 
amazing job of documenting those parts that get forgotten.

Mike


More information about the mythtv-users mailing list