From: James Britt <jamesUNDERBARb@...>
Date: 2005-01-21T07:55:52+09:00
Subject: Re: Best ways to accelerate Ruby's popularity

Ben Giddings wrote:
> David A. Black wrote:
> 
>> I wouldn't want to think that a Ruby site I created would necessarily
>> be considered untrustworthy because it didn't have a particular
>> navigation bar.  Maybe those sites that want to join together can do
>> so, but embrace an open-ended model when it comes to growth and
>> initiative and trust :-)
> 
> 
> Ok, maybe not "trustworthiness", but maybe "officialishness", or 
> "officialocity" or some other similar word that my english teacher would 
> faint if she heard me using?
> 
...

> (of course, I'm not picking on webrick now, I'm just trying to show the 
> problem with random, open, enthusiast-driven sites).

Hmm,  That seems to describe most Ruby sites right now.  Maybe not so 
random, but open andenthusiast-driven.


> 
> I think it would really help if, when something is adopted into the 
> standard library, there were an effort made to adopt the website and 
> documentation as well, so that it was clear to everybody that this is no 
> longer just some ruby hacker's pet project, but an official part of Ruby.
> 
> The same basic concept applies to ruby-doc.org.  Is this just some fan's 
> attempt to document Ruby, which may be incomplete or out of date, or is 
> this the actively maintained Ruby documentation?
> 
> See my concerns?

Sure.  First, it would be tremendous help if every library shipped in 
the standard distro included, if not full docs, at least a page 
explaining where to find full docs, then users would have a means of 
finding the extra docs they need.  (Maybe a documentation index page for 
the distro would be good.)

As for ruby-doc.org (and any other site, really), mere appearances tell 
you nothing.  A link to ruby-doc.org from a trusted site is better than 
a nice logo.

To some extent, new users are going to have to do a least some amount of 
leg work.  They should read FAQs, read news groups, and ask questions.

The Ruby community should always be mindful of this, and try to keep the 
amount of random browsing to a minimum, but I don't see many ways to 
assure authenticity of sites and content that don't make the job of 
running these sites harder than it is.


James