Rick Ross and Matt, IM’d me awhile back. They sent me www.jdocs.com.
I checked it out, and at first wondered why they were sending me a link to a page of JavaDocs :)
They then explained that the site is 100% dynamic, and it allows you to comment on parts of the documentation. This is quite cool. Normally javadoc is such a static beast, yet now someone can say “Hey, although it says to do this, I always do Y”. If the community gets behind it then it can grow and become a great wealth of knowledge.
As it is, we are seeing just the beginning. More and more features will be added, such as rich personalization…. and the ability to download a snapshot (so you can use the docs locally when on a plane!).
This is interesting stuff, and I hope it grows. The JavaLobby guys definitely have their hearts in the right place, so this should go well for them!
Check out: jdocs.com, and let them know what cool features they should implement :)
August 11th, 2004 at 1:15 pm
I don’t think Dion said I did suck, or have I been reading his blog wrongly? is everything here supposed to be satirical like the eponymous bileblog?
I happen to like JDocs, think it looks pretty damn good, a modern variation on the (dare I say dated?) JavaLobby look & feel. I’d have liked to have seen the Lobby lead-by-example and go for a full standards xhtml approach, but peeking into the code its still very good.
As to its function I’ve often found the annotated php manual quite helpful, maybe because I only use php in a time of crisis but often its needed to expand up the spartan developer comments; all the more reason its needed for open source packages.. or am I being unfair.
Have to wonder about how the owners of the projects might feel about those adverts being scatted about their documentation, I’m sure some will get sniffy about it.. and I hope JDocs is excluded from any search engine/crawlers ..I hate searching for some Java concept and only getting back results from several hundred dated copies of the Sun (et al.) JavaDocs.
August 11th, 2004 at 1:59 pm
Unlike any other blog I’ve seen, the comments here are sorted in reverse chornological order with the most recent at the top. So you’d think Matthew was replying to Dion, not to the anonymous message at the bottom.
Dion, why is that? It’s very confusing.
August 11th, 2004 at 5:05 pm
Homam -
This was just the default setting in MoveableType. I changed it just for you :)
Cheers,
Dion