Re: Developer Documentation

Hi Chris,

More documentation is always helpful and your contributions would be
appreciated.

I'm not sure how much time you are looking for from those who have
contributed in the past but I'm not sure how much they are able to
offer. Personally, I'm not sure that I have time to answer more than a
few simple questions.

I would caution you against adding a new documentation
format/repository, and against using ODF. My opinion (which is mostly
irrelevant) is that it would be best to keep to existing documentation
formats — that means either text files, or the wiki. There used to be
some docbook documentation but it was moved to the wiki over a decade ago.

Zmanda was recently acquired and might be interested in collaborating.

Welcome to the team,

Ian

On 11/16/18 1:55 PM, Chris Nighswonger wrote:
> Hi all,
> (Hopefully "all" is a large number.)
>
> I'm hoping to take some time to began to learn some of the internals
> of Amanda's code in order to be able to contribute to code maintenance
> and development. I've read through various section of the code which
> happen to be of interest based on whatever I was doing Amanda-wise at
> the moment. What I've found is that it is a labyrinth that is hard
> (for me) to navigate. With that in mind, I thought a good place to
> start would be to create some developer documentation. I have
> contributed to the wiki over the years and realize that there is some
> such material available. However, it is quite dated and disorderly.
>
> I'd like to begin ordering it and updating it as I go. I think that
> will also give me a better grasp of the larger picture code-wise, and
> enable me to begin hacking accordingly.
>
> To begin with, I'd like to develop a document which describes the
> various components of Amanda and their links. From there, I plan to
> drill down and deal with each component. This looks to be similar to
> the current layout of the Amanda git repo. I plan to start the
> documents in ODF and post them to a git repo. Perhaps I could
> crosswalk them to Latex or RTF or XYZ if that would work better. They
> could also be wiki-ized.
>
> I would like to get API documents, log formats, DB schemas, etc.
> documented as well.
>
> I would be appreciative of any assistance at all. I will need help
> from those who are still around who know the internals. I think that
> if we can get a decent set of docs out, it may greatly encourage
> larger developer participation in Amanda.
>
> FWIW, I have contributed largely in development and project management
> of the Koha ILS system: www.koha-community.org
> <http://www.koha-community.org> both as a gratis and paid developer.
> My strengths are in Perl, JS, etc. I tinker with Arduino
> hardware/firmware development as well, so am not unfamiliar with C. I
> have used Amanda now for about eight years. In general it has worked
> great.
>
> Another thing I would like to see in the long run is a OSS Window$ client.
>
> Over the next few weeks, I will toss out a few draft docs for
> feedback. In the meantime, I will probably have many questions. If you
> know of a current document that addresses my question, feel free to
> just point me to it. However, please look first to be sure it is current.
>
> Kind regards,
> Chris