F11 Alpha Release Notes one-sheet

[Paul W. Frields]

On Wed, Feb 04, 2009 at 07:32:22PM -0500, John J. McDonough wrote:
>
> ----- Original Message ----- From: "Dale Bewley" 
> <dlbewley at lib.ucdavis.edu>
> To: "For participants of the Documentation Project"  
> <fedora-docs-list at redhat.com>
> Sent: Wednesday, February 04, 2009 7:17 PM
> Subject: Re: F11 Alpha Release Notes one-sheet
>
>
>> Is the goal for the Alpha relnotes[1] to be as close to complete as
>> possible? A snapshot up to this point? If so, why isn't it based off the
>> page[2] which transcludes all the current beats? There are beats updated
>> for F11 which aren't included on "one-sheet".
>
> Alpha and beta relnotes are only the highlights.  On my small beats it 
> looks as if I will have around 100 changed packages.  How are you going to 
> describe that on one page?

I'd hope we're not summarizing 100+ changed packages on any beat,
right?  That would seem like overkill to me.  Off the top of my head I
can't think of a justification for telling people about any specific
package that wasn't widely used and had changed substantially enough
to be notable.  I think last release cycle I removed that information
from one of the beats, by general consensus, because it differed so
much from the way all the other beats worked.

For general package updates, someone could always run the script for
diff'ing the repos -- I don't recall its name or where it's kept, but
I know it exists -- and post that information somewhere suitable on
the wiki.

>> I do realize there are cutoffs and deadlines for moving content around.
>> I just had the impression last time that content moved through the
>> pipeline quickly/automagically after being updated in a beat. I could be
>> deluded though (I know Karsten worked his butt off).
>
> Karsten and Paul both.  My read is that the process is pretty painful, but 
> for 10 (and 11) not so bad because it wasn't my problem!

Once the initial conversion to XML was done for a Preview Release,
changes tended to be easy to do.  A team of two could usually get them
done in an evening or less.

The procedure would consist of looking at the history of each beat
page, seeing there were revisions since the port to XML, then looking
at the total diff to see the changes.  On occasion that would expose
another quick edit needed for style or grammar, which we'd make.  Then
we'd look at the new diff including our changes, and just edit it into
the XML, commit, etc.

After all that is done, we'd make the new POT, update the PO, and push
everything out.

>> /me still stubbornly thinks of the wiki content as the end result rather
>> than a way point. I realize that isn't practical for L10N though.
>
> It really should be pretty close, although I know I was responsible for 
> some of Paul's frustration with 10.  The only real difference should be a 
> little formatting, especially if we can get that outline straight.

Really?  I don't recall any particular frustration with you!  Either I
have a short memory, or all's well that ends well. ;-)

> If Ryan can pull off this periodic translation he wants to do, then we 
> will be able to see the result a lot better, and hopefully avoid a lot of 
> last minute pain.

We eschewed doing a big publication for Alpha or Beta because there
were so many details still in flux that people outside the Docs team
wanted the flexibility of adding or revising content quickly on the
wiki for the days immediately around the release date.  If it's not
too much of a pain for someone to keep up with as far as republishing,
great.  We found it too demanding given our resources at the time, but
it's good to see that things are evolving to the point where it's not
as much of a concern!

-- 
Paul W. Frields                                http://paul.frields.org/
  gpg fingerprint: 3DA6 A0AC 6D58 FEC4 0233  5906 ACDB C937 BD11 3717
  http://redhat.com/   -  -  -  -   http://pfrields.fedorapeople.org/
  irc.freenode.net: stickster @ #fedora-docs, #fedora-devel, #fredlug
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