Documentation Fragmentation


RE: Documentation Fragmentation
#4
As a relatively new learner of LDraw, I can definitely attest to this being the case. I often found I had to refer to multiple articles, even on the same general topic, such as the content of headers, meta commands, or how parts are numbered. There are two articles on colors, two on the OMR, etc. And information on official parts is largely documented at the Parts Tracker rather than the main documentation page at LDraw.org.

I think I understand why this is the case. Some of the articles establish and codify the LDraw standard itself, while others describe extensions to the spec. And different parts of the LDraw "universe" have different sets of rules: for example, the official parts library has formatting rules that aren't necessarily requirements of the LDraw format itself, so they're documented separately. (That does also lead to some discrepancies, however—for example, keywords are an official meta for parts only, yet there are standards for optionally using them in models. Do the same rules apply?—and so forth.)

For the end user coming in fresh, it can be a little daunting. I think having a single, unified LDraw "bible" would be a tremendous help for those who are new to this (and there are a lot of such folks out there), and would probably be mutually beneficial to the LDraw community by making it accessible to a wider user base. But I also know this would be a considerable undertaking, and I'd be willing to help with compiling, editing, proofreading, or whatever could be useful.

n.b.: There is the web page by J. C. Tchang, which compiles all LDraw standards and specs into one huge article in French. A single standalone document is pretty unwieldy, though; ideally I think you'd want something better organized and indexed.
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RE: Documentation Fragmentation - by N. W. Perry - 2020-05-21, 16:25

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