Criterion for forking build instructions for new source versions(was: [sldev] Better build instructions)

[Ricky]

Hehe, that was one of the points in one my earlier posts today. :D

Links, whether internal to the Wiki, or from external websites are an
important feature to keep track of.  But what edition should be top?  This
is still under debate! :D  The options looks like either the current
released edition, the current RC, or the SVN trunk build instructions...

Ricky

On Fri, Jul 25, 2008 at 5:38 PM, Rob Lanphier <robla at lindenlab.com> wrote:

> On 07/25/2008 02:58 PM, Boroondas Gupte wrote:
>
>> Ricky schrieb:
>>
>>> the neext question is how do we know when to just tweak the existing
>>> article, and when to split a new article? Do we only ever split?
>>>
>> Coming up with a criterion is easy. The difficult part will be to apply
>> it:
>>
>> My suggestion: Whenever it is possible to change the description so it'll
>> *keep working for the versions it used to apply to*, as well as to one (or
>> more) additional version(s), just modify the article (as long as things stay
>> practical and readable, that is). If that can't be done in a reasonable way,
>> fork the article.
>>
>> To determine when that's the case -- well, the wiki articles do have
>> discussion pages.
>>
>
> Another important consideration: consider inbound links, and keep the
> *links* up-to-date.  We need to consider that people will be deep linking to
> this wiki from unexpected places, and search engine results may not always
> be optimal.  For example, the page "Compiling the viewer (MSVS2003)"
> currently has no disclaimer in the title that it only applies to 1.20 and
> older.  When 1.21 is released (and maybe earlier), the ideal solution would
> be to fix that, and for the following:
> 1.  Rename "Compiling the viewer (MSVS2003)" to "Compiling the viewer
> (MSVS2003 - 1.20 and earlier)" with a new disclaimer added to the top
> 2.  A redirect from "Compiling the viewer (MSVS2003)" be placed to whatever
> article tells you how to compile the viewer using CMake, since someone who
> tries to visit that page title probably wants to build the latest viewer
> using MSVS2003.  Links to that URL should go to whatever the right
> instructions are for the latest viewer.
> 3.  Fix up any places where there's a link to "Compiling the viewer
> (MSVS2003)" and it really does mean "give me the old page".
>
> If this sounds like a lot of work; well, it is, which is why fewer pages
> (in the future) is probably better.  It's handy to keep the old content
> around, but it should be increasingly difficult to find, because otherwise
> novices are going to stumble into it and get frustrated.
>
> Rob
>
>
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