On Thursday 12 August 2004 09:13 am, Dave Phillips wrote: > Greetings: > > Recently I received a letter from a fellow who civilly noted how > atrocious is so much of the documentation for Linux audio software. > While that may be generally true it is also easy to point out specific > excellent docos, e.g., Snd, Csound, LilyPond, Rosegarden, etc., though > too at the same time it must be admitted that even those docs are not > necessarily the most well-organized. Perhaps this fellow's most damning > statement was made re: the HOWTOs available from the Linux Documentation > Project (LDP). I decided to check out the situation myself, and here's > what I found (the doc is followed by its last revision date): > > Linux Sound HOWTO July 2001 > ALSA Sound mini-HOWTO November 1999 > Linux MIDI HOWTO May 2002 > Linux MP3 HOWTO December 2001 > > Worse, the LDP's own documentation refers back to these out-of-date > pieces, making sure that readers continue to be misinformed. I mean no > critique of the excellent LPD, but it seems to me that as a community we > have an obligation to correct this situation. For all the talk about > improving documentation, here's a chance for anyone to get directly > involved. The format for these HOWTOs is simple and already laid out: > what's needed is currency, someone to correct and update the basic sound > & music oriented HOWTOs. Otherwise it might be better if we asked the > LDP to remove the docs in order to mitigate confusion. > > Any comments ? Any takers ? Does anyone care ? > I do. It's a very time consuming job though and I have some ideas for improvements to the process.
