On Fri, 08 Jan 2021 22:16:22 -0500, "Marcus D. Leech" <
patchvonbraun@gmail.com> wrote a great many things, and then this excerpt:
I "get" the whole "oh, but it's so very close to what I need". But GR
really is just a specialized programming environment, and GRC
has the unfortunate (in some sense) side effect of making it seem
like something else, sometimes tantalizingly so.
Part of the problem here is that GRC isn't particularly *tutorial* in
nature, and there has historically, and continues to be, a problem with
providing adequate documentation on a block-by-block basis. This is
fixable by the mere application of hundreds of hours of
tech-writer time. That time, in the 16 years that GR has existed,
has yet to materialize. Coders are notoriously poor documentation people,
and very-few tech writers seem to be imbued with the same
public-spiritedness as competent coders. This is not a problem
peculiar to GR...
Nobody in the GR "management" would be at all unhappy for folks to
contribute to making it better-documented and with a
"slicker" UI framework in GRC. There's no conscious effort to block
that. But the pool of contributors are generally focussed
on other things. Just the nature of an open-source project.
[... followed by more things ...]
is it possible part of what is going on here is an unfortunate lack of imagination on the part of our GNURadio leadership? Wait, hang on a second, before you greybeards (like mine) get huffy and ready to strike me down for my insolence and/or impudence ..
what i have seen, for quite a while and ongoing, are the annual efforts to expand the GNURadio codebase. i have also witnessed honest assessments of the state of documentation, tutorials, and GUI elements.
why does not in my mind figure just as prominently as GSoC: other campaigns like GSoD or GSoGUI ? (does anyone actually need me to fill in the definitions for those abbreviations?)
i am now an elder veteran of much documentation and technical writing and .. and .. and .. as one might expect after a lengthy and wide-ranging career.
where is the sustained outreach to *today's* new promising up-and-coming Instructors (for tutorials), Technical Writers (to expand descriptions and elucidate and footnote), and Documentation Writers (answering at every turn - what is this? what is that? why is this? where are the 'knobs'? where are the 'connectors'?) ?
oh, it's a matter of money, i hear someone saying.. is it? is it really? who passed the hat lately? a boot? a plate? a tip cup? something? where?
please do press on forward but do not fear to ask for what is needed. no matter what it seems might be the result of honestly asking for help when and where needed.
M-^Wr@M->@EM-QM-^FNO CARRIER