Installation usability testing

[Gervase Markham]

On 05/04/09 16:11, Frédéric Buclin wrote:
> Everything which goes into CVS must be reviewed. File a bug.

Have we considered using wiki-style change control?

There are important differences between code and documentation. 
Documentation is far more accessible, and any flaws in it are far more 
obvious to far more people, than code. The skills necessary to improve 
documentation are more widely spread, and exist in a far larger 
proportion of the Bugzilla user base, than for the code - particularly 
if it's an easy-to-edit form. And the problems which may occur from 
less-than-perfect documentation are much less than for less-than-perfect 
code.

This is why Wikipedia produces a pretty good encyclopaedia, but trying 
to do code development in that style (anyone can register and just check 
in) would quickly lead to an unmaintainable and buggy mess.

Reading the install documentation, it hasn't changed much since I last 
overhauled it several years ago. There are several bits which are just 
plain wrong, and have been for years.[0] Now, I could produce a patch to 
fix them - but surely the fact that they are and have remained wrong for 
a significant period of time might indicate that we are not using the 
most appropriate maintenance model for our documentation?

The appropriate amount of review for a particular type of change varies 
depending on time and circumstances. For example, the main project is 
now (belatedly) relaxing some of the super-review requirements which 
were originally put in place to stop incompetent Netscape engineers 
messing up the tree, because times have moved on. Is it time for a 
change here as well?

Gerv

[0] For example, it still recommends Bundle::Bugzilla rather than 
install-module.pl, which is the better solution and which we have had 
for 18 months (thanks, Max :-).
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