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

[John Finlay]

Brad DerManouelian wrote:
> On Mar 11, 2008, at 4:58 PM, match at ece.utah.edu wrote:
>
>   
>> On 11 Mar 2008 at 14:05, Brad DerManouelian wrote:
>>
>>     
>>> I have faith that the final released version of MythTV will have
>>> complete full documentation that end users will read from cover to
>>> cover. I'm of course talking about MythTV 1.0. And by "read" I mean,
>>> "ignore".
>>>       
>> Nice try, Brad. I suspect you're trying to say "This is version 0.21  
>> so what do
>> you expect?"
>>     
>
> My point is that if dev spent 1/3 their time writing doc instead of  
> coding and fixing bugs, we'd have only 2/3 of a complete system. Tons  
> of people complained that 0.21 took so long to release. Imagine if  
> they had to wait for dev to catch up on doc as well.
>
>   
Which implies that 1/3 is what is required. My experience would suggest 
that 1/50 or 1/100 is more appropriate for an open source developer who 
knows what the code does and has tested it as well. I think the 
cost-benefit ratio is in favor of dev docs. The overhead of open source 
docs isn't high for the dev but much higher for a non-dev.
> Also, OpenSource is the only type of software development process I've  
> ever seen where developers were expected to provide end-user  
> documentation. The software companies I've worked for would fire any  
> developer who tried to give doc to end users without going through a  
> tech writer.
>   
Different needs. Software companies find customers respond better to 
(and will pay for products with) grammatically correct docs with no 
misspelled words that have a consistent format. open source users just 
want to know how to use the software and are more accepting of rougher docs.

That said as a new user of Mythtv I find the basic docs reasonable and 
workable but clearly not sufficient given the vast array of features and 
hardware variations. However things really get difficult when things 
don't work and one is reduced to googling to try and find answers. So 
far I find that MythTV works well about 90% of the time but the failures 
in the other 10% are mysterious and difficult to solve.

John