RE: [boost] How best to use Wiki (was Sockets)

From: Jeff Garland (jeff_at_[hidden])
Date: 2002-11-23 16:28:33

> I'm interested in participating in the design and implementation of a 
> Sockets library. Your initial documents look like a good start.

Great! You will note that I posted references to your Linux Journal
articles :-)

http://www.crystalclearsoftware.com/cgi-bin/boost_wiki/wiki.pl?BoostSocket/References

 
> I have some comments, suggestions, and general ideas about a sockets 
> library. Where should I post these? Should I add them to the Wiki page, 
> or maybe post them to this list? I'm just curious because I haven't
> participated in Boost  development before, and I don't want to choose 
> the wrong forum for my input.

Well, we are all still feeling our way a bit with the best division
of things, but I would recommend the following:

1) If you have some commentary, concepts, or other contributions to 
add to the current work then just add them to the Wiki and post at 
least a pointer to the mailing list.  Wiki can support ongoing 
discussions 'thread pages', but it seems to be much better at 
capturing ideas from a large group of people that have some
persistence.  Discussion threads are too difficult to manage
on 'page'.  Of course the Wiki can also have pointers into
the mailing list archive so that it is easier to find the
discussions.
2) If you have questions or need to start a discussion on a 
particular topic you should use the mailing list because it
more people monitor it than the Wiki.
3) The Wiki is ideally suited for organizing an ongoing 
work with many participants.  Boost.Documentation, for one,
has created a task list that scopes out major things and
people can sign-up as they can.  See 
http://www.crystalclearsoftware.com/cgi-bin/boost_wiki/wiki.pl?Boost_Documentation_Format/Tasks

We probably should have one of these for Boost.Socket as well --
presuming that this is going to take some time and will have
fairly high interest.

4) The MPL team used another Wiki to develop documentation.
Not sure how that worked.  Aleksey care to comment?

Also note that for large efforts I have either helped
refactor things so that there is a base page and 'subpages',
or we have started that way.  This is nice because when you
hit the "Page List" link on the Wiki all the pages related to
a particular topic are all together. 

http://www.crystalclearsoftware.com/cgi-bin/boost_wiki/wiki.pl?action=index

Jeff