In many Open Source Software (OSS)
projects, documentation often fails to get the attention it deserves. Writing
documentation is a low priority task on the to-do list of many software
developers. They like to write exciting code, come up with cleverly devised
algorithms, or try to break the unbreakable. That's all very fine, but we
think it's also a pity. Many good OSS projects could have had a much
broader user base if more care had been taken to properly document the
project.
There are a lot of good (or bad if you wish) reasons for this lack of
project documentation:
- Developers like writing code much more than writing documentation.
- Developers tend to say: "Read the source, Luke". Quite, but
that simply won't do for end users like pupils and teachers.
- Writing documentation is not considered high-quality work, but it most
certainly is.
- "Users never bother to read documentation, so why bother to write
any?" There might be some truth in that, but then again, if the
documentation were well-written...
On the other hand, there is one very good reason why documentation
should be written:
- "Stop bugging me with your questions! RTFM!"
RTFM is Internet jargon and stands for 'Read The F******
Manual'. The abbreviation certainly shows what many developers tend to
think of manuals in general. Others in the Internet community maintain that
the full expression is 'Read The Fine Manual'. Whatever the case, we
certainly hope that the readers of the Website@School Users' Guide, when
using Website@School, will come to regard the latter version as correct.
One of the reasons for our writing this guide the way we did is our target
audience, who will be wanting a step-by-step guide. Another reason is that we
prefer not to have our work interrupted and precious time wasted by people
asking questions when the answers can be found in this guide. We did our very
best to make this guide as complete as possible. The Website@School
Users' Guide is a work 'always under construction'. Suggestions
are most welcome.
Acknowledgements
As is mostly the case with projects like ours, this
one too leans heavily on the work of others. Website@School cannot be created
without the cooperation of many volunteers who translated Website@School
program in numerous languages, translators who translated parts of the
manual, testers who found a few bugs and many, many others.
Thanks are due to our donors, people, schools, instituions that use
Website@School and support us financially or otherwiste. Details can be found
in the Introduction chapter.
We hope you will enjoy your Website@School for years to come.
Dirk Schouten, Amsterdam, the Netherlands <schoutdi (at) knoware (dot)
nl>
Peter Fokker, Bussum, the Netherlands <peter (at) berestijn (dot)
nl>
Karin Abma, Heemstede, the Netherlands <k.abma (at) quicknet (dot)
nl>
July 2013
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Author: Dirk Schouten <schoutdi (at) knoware.nl>