[Zope-CMF] Re: [Zope] Use the source Luke -- what could be done to help documentation process? Request for comments!

01 Apr 2002 20:21:02 -0700

On Mon, 2002-04-01 at 19:09, Chris McDonough wrote:
> > Since I have learned a lot from just reading this great list I volunteer
> > to be a collector and organizer of solutions.
> 
> Whoo hoo! ;-)
> 
> > I'm open to any suggestion. For a start some FAQ-like setup would IMHO
> > be most appropriate and I'd be happy to build and provide a site for
> > that. But there are certainly many websites that are already established
> > for purposes very similar to this one.
> 
> I think I'd be tempted to just use ZopeLabs for now.  It's running, and
> nothing needs to be built, and it's pretty good for this kind of thing.
> Let's just hope Adam doesn't get hit by a truck. ;-)
> 
> It would be nifty if folks took nuggets from the list and turned them into
> ZopeLabs recipes.  It would be even niftier if the ZopeLabs software sent
> out a mail every week or so to the Zope list, telling folks about new
> recipes.  Or this could of course be done manually.

I've kicked around some ideas for a bit, so I'll unleash one of them
here. :)

Idea 1: a special mailing list.
This one has it's own address, say zope-FAQs@zope.org.
It uses XML formatting such as:
<question>
  <body> A Question </body>
</question>

<question>
 <body>
  The question
 </body>
 <answer>
   An (The) Answer
 </answer.
</question>

No discussion (we already have those lists), just Q&A.
The reason for the XML formatting is to provide a simpler means of
indexing, to build a FAQ for, say faq.zope.org. Of course, a form on the
zope.org site for this would help.

Such that people could enter their question in the form, which would
check it for similar questions, and if none found, send it to the list.
Community members would subscribe, and provide answers. The site gets to
index them, and provides a UI for viewing the FAQ, a mailing list
provides rapid delivery, and querants have a nice place to read FAQ and
submit them.

Of course, the above "XML"-ish format could be extended to include an
option <component>CMF</component> and <topic>install</topic> kind of
attributes, to better organize things.

Now what would be especially cool, is if there was a SOAP interface to
it. That way, some of us could code up some GUI apps to query, answer,
and ask questions to it, or a Website could snarf it into their own
pages. heck, maybe the DB is in a ZODB, and the zope.org site could
snarf it in.

I'm not too knowledgeable in XML, so that part I'm afraid I can't help
much with. But gimme an opportunity to plug SOAP into it, and ohh yeah.

Oh., I've also kicked around the idea of a "mailbot" that would sit on
the list and look for new posts on FAQs, and reply with the (presumed)
FAQ location, and if done right, maybe a reply with the answers, or a
link to them on the web.

Anyway, just a wild idea(s).

-- 
Bill Anderson
Linux in Boise Club                  http://www.libc.org
Amateurs built the Ark, professionals built the Titanic.
Amateurs build Linux, professionals build Windows(tm).