[CMake] Documentation strategy

[Brandon Van Every]

On 6/20/07, Pau Garcia i Quiles <pgquiles at elpauer.org> wrote:
> Quoting "Alan W. Irwin" <irwin at beluga.phys.uvic.ca>:
>
> I bought the book and it's worth every cent.
>
> Once you know the basics of CMake, you can walk the way yourself

That's what I expected.  I just don't / didn't need it.

> but
> getting started with only the docs available in the website is wasting
> your time.

Or is it?  I learned by writing code.

The thing that was absolutely essential, however, was getting on the
mailing list.  Without this mailing list, most newbies would be dead.
And really, I've gotten the field reports from people in the game
industry that took CMake for a spin, never once tried to get on the
mailing list, found it wanting, and moved on.  Plenty of people like
that are out there, they're in a hurry.  The mailing list makes things
quite doable.  But without it, it would be bloody awful.  I'm pretty
"tough" as far as diving into nasty open source projects without any
documentation.  But I'm not made of iron.  There are plenty of open
source projects I've given up on after a few days, because they were
wasting my time.

In fact, that's why I write my own 3D engine code, FWIW.  The learning
curve with substandard documentation isn't worth it, compared to the
scope of the things I need to get done.  I know what my own code does.


Cheers,
Brandon Van Every