[Doc-SIG] Documentation work plan
Fred L. Drake, Jr.
fdrake@acm.org
Mon, 27 Mar 2000 17:07:15 -0500 (EST)
This plan doesn't deal with source-embedded documentation; I'm
hoping that someone will write software to do the extraction. If you
want it, please write the extractor and I can write the integration
into this plan. ;)
I sketched this out last night while tired, and filled it out a
little in a rush this morning. I'm open for comments.
Python Documentation Attack Plan
================================
1. "Long" HTML format
This will be a package that contains an HTML version of the
documentation formatted to be one HTML file per chapter. This
is primarily for the convenience of on-demand publishers
interested in keeping their Python material up-to-date.
Everyone is welcome to use this, however.
This will be released this week.
2. Merge 1.5.2p2 patches into 1.6 development tree
Time to review the CVS manual again! This will be fairly
tedious, since the 1.5.2p2 sources changed substantially more
than I'd expected. I'll work on this over the next few weeks
one manual at a time. Don't ask how many a "few" is -- I
honestly don't know.
3.a. Update for 1.6
Integrate the Unicode documentation, update the documentation
for strings and the string module to reflect the addition of
string methods. Add documentation for more modules. Complete
the Python/C API manual.
b. Write DTD for SGML documentation
Propose a specific DTD. It will likely shift a little as the
conversion is finallized and the first formatting is
implemented.
4. Release for 1.6
This will still be from the LaTeX sources, due to the
accelerated release schedule for Python 1.6.
5.a. Wrap up conversion scripts
Finalize the LaTeX-to-SGML conversion.
b. Develop SGML->HTML conversion
Make the SGML useful. This needs to be a very solid conversion
since this is what most people use and be, at first, the only
available formatting of the documents.
6.a. Transfer maintenance to SGML
No more delays!
b. Release from SGML
Put the HTML & SGML in people's hands without requiring CVS
access.
7. Develop typeset formats from SGML
We need at least one typeset version for old fogeys like me.
Probably still PDF & PostScript in two paper sizes.
8. Release all formats from SGML
Let them kill trees!
-Fred
--
Fred L. Drake, Jr. <fdrake at acm.org>
Corporation for National Research Initiatives