I would point out that Wordpress'' documentation has frequently left a
lot to be desired, and it is only in its very recent history that the
Codex even existed; before then, to be frank, it sucked, and much of
it was inaccurate.
I think part of your problem, Tobias, is that you''re expecting all the
documentation to be in one place. But that''s not the case; Rails,
ultimately, is a Ruby framework. Ruby already has a lot of
documentation online. .downcase is not a rails method, it''s a Ruby
string method, and should be documented as such - within the *Ruby
documentation*.
You say you''re trying to learn "Coding" at the same time. You
might
want to just take in some of the basic Ruby documentation - Why''s
guide, the Ruby Documentation Project (http://www.ruby-doc.org/), the
Pickaxe book even - before you try to run with Rails. If your
programming experience is more than you let on, then that might not be
as necessary.
There''s a lot to take in with Rails. And DHH _has_ documented it very
well - just check out api.rubyonrails.org . A lot of that is the most
essential information you need as reference when working with it.
One thing many people do say is that a lot of the best documentation
is in the Agile book - my copy''s on order. I appreciate it''s a
shame
it''s not free, but it''s not like it doesn''t exist.
I appreciate where you''re coming from - indeed, I''ve been
there - but
I think you might want to slow down a little, and get some Ruby basics
down pat before you branch out into Rails. The Rails documentation is
as much its users and its mailing lists as it is things on the web.
It''s young, and emerging, so I suggest patience. The resources
available for it are appearing daily.
t.
(As an aside: Wordpress is not a good example to judge others by. The
documentation, as I mentioned, was poor for a while, and its developer
documentation is *still* only just now beginning to improve. It also
does a great job of telling you how to do things without understanding
how they''re happening, or PHP basics, and I find that a bit
irritating. I say all this is a happy user of the product).
On 30/09/05, Tobias Jordans
<tobias-zjeZ61prdO8EZ6m2XrtfILNAH6kLmebB@public.gmane.org>
wrote:>
>
> Hello!
>
> I wonder how rails might improve it''s documentation.
> I am learning Rails and Coding at all more or less from the scratch and it
> just takes to much time to find information.
>
> So how can we improve this?
> How can Rails get a better documentation online?
>
> What about announcing "the documentation-week"?
> I really feel that the wiki should be the one and centered place for all
> documentation.
>
> The one reason:
> Over at the Wordpress-Community their codex is just great - you find
> everything... But if I am looking for something linke .downcase I had to
> search for half an hour bevore finding rubycentral.com...
> And this mailinglist isn''t a solution as well, especially when the
communty
> grows. Even now I didn''t get answers to two of my questions...
>
> The other reason:
> And how can that be - the Framework that says about itself to be up and
> running in just 15 minutes doesn''t have a proper place to go and
learn how
> to do so...? Where is the DRY in the doc? I have to look at about 5 places
> each time I search for a solution - not to mention all the private
> websites...
> Thats not the Rails-Way of quality, is it?
>
>
>
> Image everybody on this list would just write or rewrite one of the
> wiki-pages during a "rails doc-week"...
>
> There is some stuff to do before starting this. There should be some
> talking about the best way of putting the content into the wiki. Maybe some
> category-management (categories don''t work at the moment, do
they?) and
> maybe article-templates... --
> But first: What do you think?
>
>
> ~Tobias
>
>
> --
> http://www.rubyonrails-ug.de/
>
>
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