Documentation: Was -- identical() versus sapply()

On 12/04/2016 11:30 AM, ProfJCNash wrote:

Thanks Duncan, for the offer to experiment.

Can you suggest a couple of your pages that you think might need
improvement? We might as well start with something you'd like looked at.

I don't think I can.  I don't intentionally write obscure documentation,
so I think they're all clearly written.

Which leaves the problem of choosing one.  I could probably generate a
list of help pages where I've contributed enough
to be comfortable editing them, but you'll need to choose which one to fix.

Duncan

Then I'll ask if there are interested people and see what can be done
about getting a framework set up to work on one of those documents.

JN


On 16-04-12 10:52 AM, Duncan Murdoch wrote:

On 12/04/2016 9:21 AM, ProfJCNash wrote:

"The documentation aims to be accurate, not necessarily clear."

I notice that none of the critics
in this thread have offered improvements on what is there.

This issue is as old as documented things. With software it is
particularly nasty, especially when we want the software to function
across many platforms.

Duncan has pointed out that critics need to step up to do something.
I would put documentation failures at the top of my list of
time-wasters, and have been bitten by some particularly weak offerings
(not in R) in the last 2 weeks. So ....

Proposal: That the R community consider establishing a "test and
document" group to parallel R-core to focus on the documentation.
An experiment to test the waters is suggested below.

The needs:
- tools that let the difficulties with documentation be visualized

along

with proposed changes and the discussion accessed by the wider
community, while keeping a well-defined process for committing

accepted

changes.
- a process for the above. Right now a lot happens by discussion in

the

lists and someone in R-core committing the result. If it is
well-organized, it is not well-understood by the wider R user

community.

- tools for managing and providing access to tests

At the risk of opening another can of worms, documentation is an area
where such an effort could benefit from paid help. It's an area where
there's low reward for high effort, particularly for volunteers.
Moreover, like many volunteers, I'm happy to do some work, but I need
ways to contribute in small bites (bytes?), and it is difficult to

find

suitable tasks to take on.

Is it worth an experiment to customize something like Dokuwiki

(which I

believe was the platform for the apparently defunct R wiki) to allow a
segment of R documentation to be reviewed, discussed and changes
proposed? It could show how we might get to a better process for
managing R documentation.

The idea of having non-core people write and test documentation appeals
to me.   The mechanism (Dokuwiki or whatever) makes no difference to

me;

it should be up to the participants to decide on what works.

The difficulty will be "calibration":  those people need to make

changes

that core members agree are improvements, or they won't be

incorporated.

I'd suggest that you start very slowly.  First choose *one* help page
that you think needs improvement, and explain why to one of the authors
of that page, and what sort of improvements you propose to make.  Then
get  the author to agree with the proposal, do it, and get the same
author to agree to the final version and commit it.

I'll volunteer to participate in the approval and committing stage, but
at first only for pages that I authored.  If it turns out to be an
efficient way to improve docs, then I'd consider other pages too.

Duncan Murdoch