[chuck-users] FLOSS (user editable) manual for ChucK

[Tomasz Kaye's brain]

Hi Adam, thanks for the reply.

> Second, the manual is open source and I strongly encourage editing but
> it is currently only available through CVS and it is formatted via
> LaTeX. This has been a major barrier for getting collaborators.

LaTeX is really neat, but it is a hard sell!

> I have signed up for a github account and I would be happy to put the
> chuck manual there. This will allow everyone to grab from my branch
> and then I can pull changes from everyone and then commit them back to
> the project. How does that sound?

Perhaps responders to this thread can indicate if they have experience
working with git or other similar scm, to gauge how much of a barrier
this might be.

I'm comfortable working with git. But i wonder how many other
chuckists are used to scm systems. I underestimated the difficulty
with which new users can get to grips with a scm system; A few months
back i tried to encourage the max/msp using monome community to adopt
git (and github) to avoid the fragmentation i was seeing with many
different versions of monome apps. I posted a tutorial on how to use
git for max, evangelised about the benefits, but for whatever reason
it didn't work out. I think this was because for most people the tech
barrier with git (or any scm) was too high.

I think chuck users are more likely to be used to a scm system
already, but if i were choosing how to publish editable ChucK
documentation, i think i'd still choose for a web based editing system
like FLOSS manuals, because it'd be a shame to have technology get in
the way of people feeling as though they can contribute.

> I want to have a documentation sprint. How does December 19th
> look? Anyone else interested?

Damn!, i'm very much interested but I'll be away from computers
between the 17 and 21st of december