[kde-guidelines] The principle of guidelines.kde.org -- one step further

[Frans Englich]

On Tuesday 28 September 2004 17:33, Frans Englich wrote:
> On Tuesday 28 September 2004 16:23, Thomas Zander wrote:
> > On Sun, Sep 26, 2004 at 04:07:06AM +0000, Frans Englich wrote:
> > > I would like, that we as long term goal aim at one central developer
> > > site. Just like Apple and GNOME has it, but we will by no doubt reach a
> > > much better result.
> > >
> > > One major advantage would be purely technical. Everything would be
> > > written in Docbook, with the flexibility that brings. We would build a
> > > driver frontend to our API reference so all documentation could do
> > > exact references.
> > >
> > > We would let Cocoon handle the transformation chain, so it was taken
> > > care of automatically(cached). PDF downloads available for each
> > > page(print only what you need). We could show related commits, and
> > > display just added icons(feeds). Navigation would be generated
> > > automatically. A news engine would serve related news -- usability
> > > commentary on the net, and technical articles.
> >
> > Cocoon (http://cocoon.apache.org/) is a Java servlet and thus needs a
> > java servlet engine.  While this is not rocket science (Tomcat is
> > apt-gettable IIRC) I'm wondering how realistic it is to get that onto the
> > servers since it has to be maintained as well.
> >
> > Frans; do you have experience with Cocoon?
>
> No. But from the reading I've done, it's not rocket science :) I am willing
> to take the responsibility(admin if needed).
>
> > How much Java programming is
> > needed to do wierd things?  Or is xslt experience enough?
>
> In either case is Java programming not needed. For bringing up the web
> structure such as navigation etc, XSLT experience is enough, but not for
> writers or any others who only add content -- they only need to know
> Docbook.

In other words, adding content is easy(cocoon or xsltproc). It is those who 
write the core who need the broader skills. 

I think this centralization is something we should aim for. What often happens 
with sites at KDE is they become unmaintained, or broken when people commit 
in something they don't know about. We should write a set of XSL sheets that 
builds all the structure, such as navigation and other glue, so that's just 
taken care of. CSSs would be layered for inheritance(centralization). It 
would make maintenance easy, and ensure a good result for a long time(as 
people come and go).


Cheers,

		Frans