User:Zakgreant/pairdoc/2010-11-09

Participants: Chad Horohoe and Zak Greant

A brief (~15 minutes) discussion on documentation and the new installer/upgrader in 1.17.

Notes

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  • Chad's recent focus has been the new installer/upgrader that will be shipped in 1.17.
  • He also works on Extension:CodeReview.
  • The old installer was a single form, which was difficult for less-experienced sysadmins to use
  • The new installer:
    • has a multi-stage/wizard approach that allows sysadmints to incrementally work through the process.
    • works with many major web servers, including Apache, IIS, lighttpd and nginx
    • works with many DMBS, including PostgreSQL, MySQL and SQLite. Oracle support is being tested.
    • is still targeted for sysadmins.
    • is mostly self-documented.
    • is localizable.
    • is still having the UI reworked. (No screenshots yet.)
  • The current install and upgrade documentation is both too specific and too brittle.
  • Well-meaning users have added documentation that doesn't belong in the docs, such as step-by-step guides to installing platform software and dependencies. Materials like this should be in the User: space.

Actions

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  • Zak: Run the new installer (using HEAD) on a few different platforms
  • Zak: Review the embedded docs and suggest any needed improvements.
  • Zak: Ask for Chad's feedback on things related to our use of Extension:CodeReview.