These reports would be a lot more readable if they included links or inline explanations of all of the proper nouns used to describe bits of the system. They very often read to me like ‘the FromdleService just gained support for FrobnicarionPlus’ and I have no idea whether I should be interested (and I say this as someone who ctually ram BeOS R5 and used BFS as a case study when teaching operating systems). It’s probably comprehensible to most of the Haiku developer community, but much less so to anyone outside who might want to become a contributor.
It’s probably comprehensible to most of the Haiku developer community, but much less so to anyone outside who might want to become a contributor.
Indeed these reports started years ago precisely to keep the community informed and on the same page, and to provide something less technical and more accessible than the commit logs. That the posts are now getting spread more widely than that likely means we should indeed try to make them a bit more accessible. But for the community, such explanations would be redundant, so it’s a tricky balance to strike.
of all of the proper nouns used to describe bits of the system.
Do you just mean internal Haiku-specific components, like (e.g.) app_server, userlandfs? Because (say) FreeBSD callouts are obviously not Haiku-specific, nor is strace (our implementation is, but the concept of course is not), etc.
But for the community, such explanations would be redundant, so it’s a tricky balance to strike.
For what it’s worth, when I helped edit the FreeBSD status reports, we had a policy of adding parenthetical definitions to these kind of things and never had complaints from the community (quite the revers).
Do you just mean internal Haiku-specific components, like (e.g.) app_server, userlandfs? Because (say) FreeBSD callouts are obviously not Haiku-specific, nor is strace (our implementation is, but the concept of course is not), etc.
I know what the fallout subsystem in FreeBSD does, but I would still have added a short description in an intro paragraph to a FreeBSD status report mentioning it. The same would be helpful in a Hakiu one. Note that in the FreeBSD status report, it would have linked the callout(9) man page, so the inline definition would be less important. You can use links like this or definitions that pop up on click to avoid disrupting the flow for people who know the subject well.
Please keep writing these reports though, they’re great for someone like me to see progress in Haiku.
If any of the authors are reading this:
These reports would be a lot more readable if they included links or inline explanations of all of the proper nouns used to describe bits of the system. They very often read to me like ‘the FromdleService just gained support for FrobnicarionPlus’ and I have no idea whether I should be interested (and I say this as someone who ctually ram BeOS R5 and used BFS as a case study when teaching operating systems). It’s probably comprehensible to most of the Haiku developer community, but much less so to anyone outside who might want to become a contributor.
(I’m the author of the post.)
Indeed these reports started years ago precisely to keep the community informed and on the same page, and to provide something less technical and more accessible than the commit logs. That the posts are now getting spread more widely than that likely means we should indeed try to make them a bit more accessible. But for the community, such explanations would be redundant, so it’s a tricky balance to strike.
Do you just mean internal Haiku-specific components, like (e.g.)
app_server,userlandfs? Because (say) FreeBSD callouts are obviously not Haiku-specific, nor isstrace(our implementation is, but the concept of course is not), etc.For what it’s worth, when I helped edit the FreeBSD status reports, we had a policy of adding parenthetical definitions to these kind of things and never had complaints from the community (quite the revers).
I know what the fallout subsystem in FreeBSD does, but I would still have added a short description in an intro paragraph to a FreeBSD status report mentioning it. The same would be helpful in a Hakiu one. Note that in the FreeBSD status report, it would have linked the callout(9) man page, so the inline definition would be less important. You can use links like this or definitions that pop up on click to avoid disrupting the flow for people who know the subject well.
Please keep writing these reports though, they’re great for someone like me to see progress in Haiku.
Yeah, I think the gold standard for this is Dolphin’s reports, which is accessible to even non-technical users.