Who fancies a community effort to write a book?

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Ambush Commander
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Post by Ambush Commander »

Exactly. As a result, we throw in everything and the kitchen sink. ;-)
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Maugrim_The_Reaper
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Post by Maugrim_The_Reaper »

How do we fit the kitchen sink? :)
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Ambush Commander
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Post by Ambush Commander »

As a tribute to the cliche, ehem, proverb, our example for object oriented system will be modeling your standard kitchen sink. :-P :twisted:
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Maugrim_The_Reaper
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Post by Maugrim_The_Reaper »

Beats the car analogy...
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Ambush Commander
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Post by Ambush Commander »

Well, I don't know if we're actually going to use a kitchen sink (we'd be solving the blockage problem)? But what I'm saying is that if it's that long, PDF and paper may not be feasible. After all, no one wants a six thousand page PDF. The great thing about HTML is that you can split things into many seperate pages.
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Maugrim_The_Reaper
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Post by Maugrim_The_Reaper »

6000 pages would be a bit much for even the entire forum to write...excepting feyd, who everyone knows has a 10,000 page PHP manual prepared to sink every other option when PHP6 is released...

Speaking of which, no signs of the forum for this yet... Might check with feyd what the status is if he's available.
Vinh
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Book or Encyclopedia

Post by Vinh »

If we are to build it wikipedia like, why not simply extend the current PHP topic in wikipedia and build a portal around it.
That way, not only we can enhance the specific using the existing content and we don't have to worry about setting edition rules.

Unless we want it to be self contained, in which case, somehow we need to decide what scope for the book.
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Maugrim_The_Reaper
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Post by Maugrim_The_Reaper »

It needs to be self contained - for instance the end format is not likely to be wiki. More likely a format suitable for conversion to PDF and HTML.
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Ambush Commander
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Post by Ambush Commander »

Yep, that's part of the problem. We could use Wikibooks, but MediaWiki doesn't offer any facilities for translating into other media. Yet.
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Benjamin
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Post by Benjamin »

This could end up being a 200 page thread. I think that it deserves its own category, with subcategories. Each subcategory can be a discussion about a chapter, and each chapter can have subcategories about each page, perhaps even each paragraph.

Never-the-less, it's obvious that a lot of people are interested in developing this book.

Let's make it happen.

The first thing we all need to do is decide what the next steps are.

I think the first step is for us to decide how the development envrioment should be set up.

I have plenty of space and bandwidth on my server for a forum/wiki/whatever, otherwise we can set one up here.

Once that is set up, how do we organize it?
Who are going to moderate?
Who is going to proofread?
Who is going to write?

Just a start...
Vinh
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Ressources

Post by Vinh »

Maybe that could be a good start, registering our ressources, who can/want to do what.

Teams goes for :

Authoring
/* Submit classified content */
->topics/sections/articles...
->samples

Review
/* Proof readers
->read, correct, comment goes back to Author or validate
->test samples, correct, comment goes back to Author or validate

Content management
/* ensure everything is in order, manage task list and ressources
->enforce redaction rules and global consistency
->structure
->publication process
->validation
->manage alternate tools, (ie:forums)

Works for you ?
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RobertGonzalez
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Post by RobertGonzalez »

Hey all, if you can, go back and read through the entire thread. There is already a wiki set up by Maugrim. Earlier in this thread I described the possible roles of those involved and a general outline of theose roles' responsiblities.

d11wtq, the member that suggested this concept, is on vacation this week. Maugrim will be out of town (or relaxing???) for a few days as well. d11 was working on getting a thread setup here to continue the discussion. We are waiting for d11 to return so we can talk about naming, a possible domain, hosting and the what not. For now, those that want to contribute should visit Maugrim's wiki to review the current list of topics and posted edits.
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Maugrim_The_Reaper
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Post by Maugrim_The_Reaper »

Yep, we have a small timeout coming. I consider a nice mulling period - and general discussion will still continue besides.

Just to note the most important topics to decide are Licensing and Copyrights. I cannot stress this enough. Even the contents listing which exists now, when modified and published has no claimed license or copyright at this point. Needs to be decided basically before anything else.

I will check up on the forums - they'll be hosted on this board. However it being US Independence Day soon, and folk being on holiday, it may take a few days at least.
ruzz
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I'd be interested in helping

Post by ruzz »

I've got 6 years experience with php/mysql and a lot of writing experience. I'd love to contribute to something like this.

question: when you say php, are you talking php4, or php5?
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Maugrim_The_Reaper
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Post by Maugrim_The_Reaper »

Keep in touch with the thread - July 4 and other factors probably mean little progress this week but next week should see more organising.

I suspect mainly PHP5, esp. with PHP 6 around the corner.
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