[Mapserver-dev] SWIG MapScript docs

[Steve Lime]

That's cause we do a shitty job of keeping the authors (like Lowell)
up-to-date. We're also spreading
ourselves thin by trying to maintain a full-blown version for every
language, including PHP. That's 
probably not necessary, at least for SWIG. There are syntactical
differences to be sure and those 
could be addressed up front in the documentation, but it's funny how
much perl and PHP code
look alike sometimes. My preference would be to:

1) make every effort to keep versions in sync, that is, don't improve
one without alerting the other camp
2) look at some sort of integrated set of documentation
3) the documentation is a HOWTO just like all other MapServer
documentation

I look at something like javascript. The best documentation out there
doesn't deal with each browser
independently, rather they provide general usage information and
address browser specific issues
as needed (for example, by using a language table with a checkmark if
supported). 

MapScript should be viewed as one, unified, API rather than the 6 or so
seperate ones it is today. That
was the idea originally.

Steve

>>> Daniel Morissette <dmorissette at dmsolutions.ca> 2/16/2004 3:34:18 PM
>>>
Hi,

We often get the comment from people who try to use Perl MapScript or 
other SWIG-based MapScript that the docs are out of date or incomplete

and that what's there is hard to use. Is there something we could do to

improve that and make sure that the SWIG-based MapScript docs are
always 
up to date?

In the case of PHP MapScript we have a mapscript/php3/README which is 
used as the base for the website docs and as an ultimate reference for

all PHP MapScript stuff. This README is updated by the developers 
everytime we change something to PHP MapScript so it's always up to
date.

Perhaps the same could be done for the SWIG MapScript: we could create
a 
MAPSCRIPT.TXT file (or equivalent) in the mapscript directory besides 
the mapscript.i file, and everytime mapscript.i is modified, developers

would be required to update the documentation file.  Then users could
at 
least go to that file to make sure they get the latest and greatest
docs.

Just a thought... but I'm sure users would welcome that...

Daniel
-- 
------------------------------------------------------------
  Daniel Morissette               dmorissette at dmsolutions.ca 
  DM Solutions Group              http://www.dmsolutions.ca/ 
------------------------------------------------------------

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