[yapc] DOC: glossary

[Uri Guttman]

hi to all docathon hackers (and others too),

one idea we came up with during the docathon is that perl6 needs a
glossary. would the terms autobox or mixin make any sense to a newcomer
who didn't know any OO theory? so this is a proposal to start a glossary
as a new S\d+ or other document. here are some ideas i have been
bouncing in my skull that i would like to see in it:

the list of terms should include all of perl6's special variable names,
namespaces (including the term namespace! :), keywords, OO theory terms
(like autobox). i think it should also include many/most of parrot's
terms as there is some overlap. stuff like haskell, pugs, PGE, and
others should also be included. i don't think perl6 ops should be
included.

each term should have a pronunciation if it isn't obvious.

of course there should be a succinct definition of no more than a couple
of sentences. 

a reference to the S\d+ docs that discuss the term in depth

links/references to longer definitions on the web for non-perl specific
terms like autobox.

a 'see also' section referring to other terms.

i think a pumpking should be annointed to own the master doc. this would
be a great job for anyone who wants to help as you don't even need to
understand all the terms or be a core perl6 hacker. you just need to
know how to alphabetize, format and handle patches, google a bit for
external links, track xrefs and see also's and such. this is basically
an ongoing editor job. a first task would be to create this doc and to
create a pod template for entries. then others can submit entries in
that format or the pumpking can edit them into that format.

we can start with just a list of terms and they can be filled out
incrementally. i do expect this to be fairly large with several hundred
terms. 

i will post a starter list of terms soon. it will just be words i have
been seeing in S02 which is the spec i have been editing. all the other
docathon hackers (and anyone else) can submit lists as well. when we
have a pumpking, then the glossary doc itself can be started. if you
want to submit entries do that too. 

thanx,

uri

-- 
Uri Guttman  ------  uri at stemsystems.com  -------- http://www.stemsystems.com
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