Re: [Ksummit-discuss] [TECH TOPIC] Documentation

Laurent Pinchart
2020-06-13T17:06:26Z

Hi Shuah,

On Fri, Jun 12, 2020 at 10:08:36AM -0600, Shuah Khan wrote:
> On 6/12/20 3:07 AM, Mike Rapoport wrote:
> > On Thu, Jun 11, 2020 at 11:28:09AM -0700, Joe Perches wrote:
> >> On Thu, 2020-06-11 at 12:03 -0600, Shuah Khan wrote:
> >>> People that know the sub-systems well might not
> >>> have time to document and more importantly keeping the documents
> >>> updated.
> >>
> >> So you somehow expect people that do _not_ know the
> >> sub-system well to produce good and useful documentation?
> >
> > Writing documentation is a way to learn.
>
> +1
>
> I find it useful and I also use it as learning tool. When I attempt
> document or explain a concept or an area, I get a deeper understanding
> of that area.

I only partly agree with that. I started the DRM documentation effort
because I had to write a driver, and there was no documentation. Writing
doc was indeed a way to learn, but it's a really high barrier to entry,
more difficult than "just" writing a new driver. You need a very high
level of motivation to do so, I don't think it's a suitable for someone
who has little technical knowledge of the Linux kernel for instance. It
also requires lots of time.

> > Besides, to produce good and usefull documentation it is not necessary
> > to have very deep understanding of all the small details. The writer
> > must capture the large picture and be able to explain it.
>
> +1.
>
> I would counter the argument that new developers can't document an area,
> they can and the document can be reviewed by experts.
>
> A fresh set of eyes bring a new perspective and could help improve the
> code, just like the benefits of having others test your code.

A fresh set of eyes can point to inconsistencies in the code while
writing documentation, but I don't share the view that we can consider
documentation writing as a good learning curve task in general, it
really requires lots of time and a strong incentive in addition to
documentation writing itself.

> I have had some level of success adding documentation tasks in the
> mentoring program. It does require experts spending time reviewing to
> make sure it is correct.

Are those proposed, ongoing or completed tasks ? If some are completed,
could you share information about what has been produced ?

> One thing we could do is creating a list documentation todo and review
> which is part of our development workflow anyway.

--
Regards,

Laurent Pinchart