another self-introduction

[Andy Grimm]

I will follow in the trend of self-introductions:

My name is Andy Grimm.  I live in San Francisco and work for Ingres
Corporation in Redwood City.  I have been a RH/FC user since 1997, and
spent 5 years as a sysadmin at LexisNexis working primarily on
Solaris-to-Red Hat migrations and new RHEL deployments.  I also helped
to deploy about 100 Red Hat / Fedora desktops & laptops there.

Up until last year, my "programming" experience was mostly perl and C,
and nothing particularly fancy.  Now i spend more time with python and
java, though it's mostly fixing other people's code rather than creating
anything of my own from scratch.

I have a good bit of experience mucking with HTML and CSS (mostly from 5
to 10 years ago), and I even wrote some documentation in DocBook format
at my last job, and convinced some of my coworkers to do the same.

I am hoping to make some valuable contributions to the Fedora docs, and
I also hope to gain knowledge from this group that I can use to make the
Ingres documentation process better and more open.

I have started lurking on #fedora-docs occasionally, under the nick
"mull".

--Andy

[Karsten Wade]

On Mon, 2007-02-12 at 16:12 -0500, Andy Grimm wrote:
>  I will follow in the trend of self-introductions: 
Not just trendy, but it's the thing to do to get "in" with the "in
crowd".  Andy, welcome.  You rock for making the trek for FUDCon Boston
this year; I hope the experience was rewarding for you.  It was good to
hang out/conference/hackfest with you.  Welcome to FDP.

>  Up until last year, my "programming" experience was mostly
> perl and C,
>  and nothing particularly fancy.  Now i spend more time with python and
>  java, though it's mostly fixing other people's code rather than creating
>  anything of my own from scratch. 
Aside from writing cool documents, are you interested in doing some
programming-related work for this project?  All Python:

http://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-infrastructure-list/2007-February/m...

I keep asking around because one option is to put together a small team
from this project, with varying degrees of Python and packaging
experience, to make this happen.  There is already someone maintaining
the Moin Moin package for Fedora, so we just need to get the upstream
integration work completed.

>  I have a good bit of experience mucking with HTML and CSS (mostly
> from 5
>  to 10 years ago), and I even wrote some documentation in DocBook format
>  at my last job, and convinced some of my coworkers to do the same. 
There is a strong crossover of resources (people, skills) between FDP
and the Fedora Websites team; you'll have a chance to exercise both
those skills, if you wish to.

>  I am hoping to make some valuable contributions to the Fedora docs,
> and
>  I also hope to gain knowledge from this group that I can use to make the
>  Ingres documentation process better and more open. 
One of our specific goals is to make a toolchain that can be adopted
easily by others.  Our having an end-to-end, 100% FLOSS solution
(editor-of-choice through to automatic build outputs of all formats) is
a clear goal that is this close: > <

Squint a bit and you can see the lines connect together.

Other than that, do you want to look around yourself and find your way?
Or do you want some direction to follow, one that is based on your
interests?  

>  I have started lurking on #fedora-docs occasionally, under the nick
>  "mull". 
See you at the water cooler,

Karsten
-- 
Karsten Wade, RHCE, 108 Editor    ^     Fedora Documentation Project 
 Sr. Developer Relations Mgr.     |  fedoraproject.org/wiki/DocsProject
   quaid.108.redhat.com           |          gpg key: AD0E0C41
////////////////////////////////// \\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\

[John Babich]

Andy:

Sorry for the delay in welcoming you to the
Fedora Docs Project.

Karsten pretty much said what I was going
to say, and probably better.

Now I know who lurks behind the handle "mull".

John "jmbuser" Babich
Volunteer, Fedora Docs Project

[Paul W. Frields]

On Mon, 2007-02-12 at 16:12 -0500, Andy Grimm wrote:
>  I will follow in the trend of self-introductions:
>  
>  My name is Andy Grimm.  I live in San Francisco and work for Ingres
>  Corporation in Redwood City.  I have been a RH/FC user since 1997, and
>  spent 5 years as a sysadmin at LexisNexis working primarily on
>  Solaris-to-Red Hat migrations and new RHEL deployments.  I also helped
>  to deploy about 100 Red Hat / Fedora desktops & laptops there.
>  
>  Up until last year, my "programming" experience was mostly perl and C,
>  and nothing particularly fancy.  Now i spend more time with python and
>  java, though it's mostly fixing other people's code rather than creating
>  anything of my own from scratch.
>  
>  I have a good bit of experience mucking with HTML and CSS (mostly from 5
>  to 10 years ago), and I even wrote some documentation in DocBook format
>  at my last job, and convinced some of my coworkers to do the same.
>  
>  I am hoping to make some valuable contributions to the Fedora docs, and
>  I also hope to gain knowledge from this group that I can use to make the
>  Ingres documentation process better and more open.
>  
>  I have started lurking on #fedora-docs occasionally, under the nick
>  "mull". 
Andy, it was good meeting you at the FUDCon!  I had an idea for
something to which you would be well-suited to contribute -- the
Documentation Guide.  Karsten and I have been really trying to get this
thing in better shape for a new, spiffy release that really informs
users how to get involved with our CVS/DocBook XML repository.

I'm betting that you have some CVS experience (but if not, you don't
need to know much to help here).  We really need some fresh eyes on the
Documentation Guide, if for no other purpose than to show us where we're
missing chunks both big and small.  If you check out the current
Documentation Guide, you could read through it and start telling us
where it needs work.  A great way to do that is to file bugs in
Bugzilla, since that helps us track our work easily, and we can check
off items as we finish them by closing the bug reports.

Are you interested in helping in this way?  I will be around on IRC
today and tomorrow and could give you pointers if and when you need any,
as could many other contributors.

-- 
Paul W. Frields, RHCE                          http://paul.frields.org/
  gpg fingerprint: 3DA6 A0AC 6D58 FEC4 0233  5906 ACDB C937 BD11 3717
      Fedora Project:  http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/PaulWFrields
  irc.freenode.net: stickster @ #fedora-docs, #fedora-devel, #fredlug

[Andy Grimm]

On Sun, 2007-02-18 at 10:41 -0500, Paul W. Frields wrote:
>  
>  I'm betting that you have some CVS experience (but if not, you don't
>  need to know much to help here).  We really need some fresh eyes on
>  the
>  Documentation Guide, if for no other purpose than to show us where
>  we're
>  missing chunks both big and small.  
>  
>  Are you interested in helping in this way?   

Sure, that sounds like it could be interesting.  I don't have a *lot* of
CVS experience in particular; my previous company used SCCS - ugh! - and
my current company uses perforce, to which I am still not accustomed.  I
understand the concepts, though.  

So, should I check out a version of this doc CVS to start looking over
it?

--Andy

[Paul W. Frields]

On Mon, 2007-02-19 at 16:57 -0500, Andy Grimm wrote:
>  On Sun, 2007-02-18 at 10:41 -0500, Paul W. Frields wrote:
>  > 
>  > I'm betting that you have some CVS experience (but if not, you don't
>  > need to know much to help here).  We really need some fresh eyes on
>  > the
>  > Documentation Guide, if for no other purpose than to show us where
>  > we're
>  > missing chunks both big and small.  
>  > 
>  > Are you interested in helping in this way?  
>  
>  
>  Sure, that sounds like it could be interesting.  I don't have a *lot* of
>  CVS experience in particular; my previous company used SCCS - ugh! - and
>  my current company uses perforce, to which I am still not accustomed.  I
>  understand the concepts, though.  
>  
>  So, should I check out a version of this doc CVS to start looking over
>  it? 
Yes.  You can find out *how* to do the CVS part (checkout) in the
published version of the guide at:

http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Docs/CvsUsage 

The first couple sections are all you need to read to pull the docs.
I'd recommend doing the following:

(pull document from CVS)
cd whatever_path/documentation-guide/
make validate-xml-en_US
yelp en_US/documentation-guide.xml

That assumes you have the "yelp" package installed; most Fedora systems
do.  If not, you could try loading this in some other XML reader.  The
yelp reader will show you a readable version, not the XML code itself,
which makes it easier for you to pick out things that aren't helpful.

Try the steps; tell us what you think is missing.  We want this guide to
reflect just the things that are Fedora Docs-specific, if possible.
There is necessarily a little bit about DocBook and some other subjects,
but we don't want to repeat that which exists elsewhere and that we can
point to.  Everything's up for your comment -- flow, organization,
whatever.  If someone disagrees, we'll let you know.  Don't feel you
can't argue the point if it's worth arguing.  Be bold but rational.

Most of all, file bugs in Bugzilla.  That will make it easier for us to
track the work.  If you have any specific questions, just shoot an email
to the list.  Thanks for your time and effort!

-- 
Paul W. Frields, RHCE                          http://paul.frields.org/
  gpg fingerprint: 3DA6 A0AC 6D58 FEC4 0233  5906 ACDB C937 BD11 3717
      Fedora Project:  http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/PaulWFrields
  irc.freenode.net: stickster @ #fedora-docs, #fedora-devel, #fredlug