MSDN-JS Project

Hi, Max, Alexander-

Both of you offered to help with the MSDN-JS project. Max made some good 
initial progress, setting up a test-import wiki, but sometimes two heads 
are better than one, so I thought the two of you could collaborate on 
the import-script project, if that works for both of you. Or, 
alternately, you could find another way to divide the work that you are 
both comfortable with. In any case, I'd like you both to feel empowered 
to contribute, and I'm happy to answer any questions or knock down any 
barriers you're experiencing.

As you probably saw recently, we've decided to put our primary focus on 
finishing up the reference articles for CSS properties. But that doesn't 
mean we won't welcome parallel work on the JavaScript article import. I 
anticipate that after we finalize the CSS properties project, we will be 
turning our full attention on the articles for JavaScript and DOM, and 
having the foundation prepped during the next couple of months will be 
very useful!

So, is there anything we can do right now to help you out?

And is there anyone else on this list who is specifically interested in 
JavaScript, and would be interested in driving it with Alexander and Max?


(BTW, Alexander, my apologies for earlier conflating you with the other 
"Alex" in the project! I've been juggling a lot of things recently.)

Regards-
-Doug

On 4/29/13 9:33 PM, Max Polk wrote:
> Hello Doug,
>
> Doug wrote:
>> So, if you're willing to take charge of making a conversion script, and
>> iterating with it to refine the output, that would be most welcome!
>
> I'll be happy to take charge and work this to completion.  To begin, I
> need feedback on two decision points.
>
> ===== Decision 1
>
> Doug wrote:
>> I like the structure that MDN used ..., under these topic clusters:
>> * Objects
>> * Constants
>> * Properties
>> ...[clip]...
>> So, it could look like:
>>   http://docs.webplatform.org/wiki/javascript
>>   →/javascript/objects/
>>   →→/javascript/objects/Date
>> ...[clip]...
>
> Note that at this moment, two sets of existing pages exist in
> different root locations:
>
> [1] http://docs.webplatform.org/wiki/concepts/programming/javascript
>
> [2] http://docs.webplatform.org/wiki/javascript
>
> For example, "objects" are subpages of both of the above with content in them.
>
> Rather than overwriting existing pages with the output of this
> conversion, one idea is
> to create a third set separate from the above two.  After conversion
> is complete and the
> third set is installed, we then begin a new effort to manually edit
> individual pages
> from all three sets of locations so as to merge it into the final
> form, with an eye on
> deleting merged pages as you go.
>
> An alternative is move [1] and [2] out of the way to new locations,
> slap the converted
> pages in the right place, then begin a new effort to merge the new
> locations of [1] and
> [2] into it.
>
> Even with a test wiki:
>
> [3] http://docs.webplatform.org/test/Main_Page
>
> The point remains the same.  You have to deal with merging and that's manual.
>
> ===== Decision 2
>
> Since the source content exists at github:
>
> [4] https://github.com/webplatform/msdn-js
>
> And existing tools exist at github:
>
> [5] https://github.com/webplatform/webplatform-tools
>
> I can eventually get the one-time-effort scripts I'm writing there.
>
> But for the mean time I need a testbed where I turn HTML into
> MediaWiki lots of times,
> where I do mass adds repeatedly in a development loop to show the work
> in progress and get feedback from early glances.
>
> This would avoid 400 automated page updates multiple times a day, which is spam
> in anyone's book.
>
> So I'm thinking of creating my own personal area on throwaway
> Mediawiki instance using
> my own hosting solution, with no Mediawiki semantic extensions, just a
> vanilla instance.
> I can point people to it to show unfit early versions that get better
> over time, until
> it's deemed ready.  Then I push to the test wiki where the environment
> is more accurate
> to get the final nod.  Then I push the final version and we're done.
>

Received on Sunday, 5 May 2013 04:30:11 UTC