[pmwiki-users] Does this list inhibit development of good documentation?

[Oliver Betz]

Tegan Dowling wrote:

[What is *wrong* with DocumentationIndex]

> I'll bet it's the "more ... reference than ... tutorial" aspect --
> that a new-comer to it encounters the all-too-common, and hugely
> frustrating situation, in which one new word or phrase is defined in
> terms of another one, and a new user has not built up enough
> background in the application to be able to read through, from
> beginning to end, without being required to memorize and appreciate an
> unreasonable number of new terms and concepts for a single pass.

Excellent explanation. Starting with PmWiki several weeks ago, I 
fully agree with you.

But it's doable. Opening a bunch of new tabs in the browser for 
"thing I have to read later" and reading again and again, one gets 
the picture after a certain time.

IMO PmWiki has a rather good documentation compared to other wikis I 
know. One "problem" is that there are so many features to describe.

A introductory manual could improve this even further, but it is not 
easy to do. It should explain only the basics, not too detailed, to 
give the novice an idea how things work. There should not be too much 
redundancy since this would be a maintenance nightmare.

Oliver
-- 
Oliver Betz, Muenchen