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Re: [RFC] Contributing tree-ssa to mainline
Kaveh R. Ghazi wrote:
Believe me, I am aware of the lack of sexiness of documentation.
Nevertheless IMHO we shouldn't throw up our hands and give up.
Agreed.
My understanding is that the tree-ssa project is actually very well
funded given the paid individuals dedicated to it for so long. It
would seem simple good project management to include some
documentation hours in there somewhere.
Again, someone may be getting paid to write documentation for tree-ssa;
I just don't know who. I think tree-ssa's advocates would have a better
selling point if documentation stood ready for all to see.
At the moment, tree-ssa has a doxygen-generated API reference, a
description of the SSA architecture, and various ancillary documents.
I'm trying to contribute to gfortran at the moment. I'm an old hand at
coding, but compilers aren't my forte -- so it's a bit of a slog at the
moment, and something I'm doing in my spare (i.e., "free-as-in-beer")
time. Once I'm confident of my footing, I might consider writing a "this
is how it works" document. I certainly know I could use such a thing
right about now!
Furthermore, the sexiness argument usually applies to more junior
programmers who don't understand the value of docs.
It also applies to people who contribute "free-as-in-beer" time. If I'm
going to work on something recreationally, I want to do something "fun"
or that scratches an itch. I'm trying to work on two gfortran problems
because they eliminate some nasty irritations for me. Perhaps the lack
of documentation will also irritate me enough to work on it. ;)
--
Scott Robert Ladd
Coyote Gulch Productions (http://www.coyotegulch.com)
Software Invention for High-Performance Computing