[mapserver-dev] Documentation Question

[Steve Lime]

What about creating multiple versions, that is a 5.x and older expressions doc and updating the main one to be 6.0 specific? I'd only advocate that in cases where there's a great deal of change. The 6.0 doc would link to the other but we'd carry both in the 6.0 branch and trunk. 6.0 adds so much to expressions, not to mention the changes...

Steve

Sent from my iPad

On Jul 22, 2011, at 6:51 AM, Jeff McKenna <jmckenna at gatewaygeomatics.com> wrote:

> Hi Steve,
> 
> My position is that the doc contents should contain references to the MapServer version that the feature applies to.  So yes we should maintain backwards compatibility.  For example, /mapfile/expressions.txt could be separated into "MapServer 6.0 Expressions" and "MapServer 5 Expressions" sections.  I would argue that this is much easier to maintain, and makes more sense to a user.  It does ask doc contributors and developers to specifically mention the MapServer version when they are documenting though.  I'll give an example of what I mean:
> 
> Let's say I am a mapscript dev and I add a function to a mapscript. Then I'd go to its doc (meaning: in trunk and also in branch-whatever-is-live-on-web, because a user wants to know what is available) and add:
> 
> GetXXX
>  Added in MapServer version 6.2, this function gets the...
> 
> 
> 
> I hope this helps clarify my position.
> 
> -jeff
> 
> 
> 
> On 11-07-21 1:42 PM, Steve Lime wrote:
>> Question for folks. What's our position regarding multi-version support
>> within the documentation? For example, there were a number of syntax
>> changes related to logical expressions in 6.0. We could update the
>> documentation to reflect 6.0 "as is" with no references to how things
>> worked in older versions. We could also try to maintain some backwards
>> compatibility so that the documentation could support all versions.
>> Doing so requires lots of extra explanation though and makes it harder
>> to maintain. If documentation is version specific then that would argue
>> for historical documentation to be made available...
>> 
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