[FM Discuss] Pure Data Manual issues (was Re: FLOSS manuals archive sites - and a volunteer request)
mick
mick at flossmanuals.net
Wed Jul 3 12:36:03 PDT 2024
Hi there Alexandre,
Can I ask you to to do a pull request on the following git repository?
https://gitlab.com/flossmanuals/archive.flossmanuals.net
That way you can either put in an update to where you want it to point
to or just remove content entirely
Have a nice day!
Mick
On 03/07/2024 18:04, Alexandre Torres Porres wrote:
> Hi, I'm resurrecting this discussion from over 2.5 years ago, sorry.
>
> We have been updating the "current" document here =>
> https://en.flossmanuals.net/pd-extended/_full/
>
> What happened was that the Pd FLOSS Manual is just adding more noise
> and confusion than really helping.
>
> Pure Data has an official manual, see
> https://msp.ucsd.edu/Pd_documentation/index.htm and, by the way, I am
> the one in the community that has been mostly engaged in working with
> Pd's manual and all of its documentation, help files, etc... you can
> see I am part of the Pd team in the Pure Data repository and one with
> the most commits count/collaboration
> https://github.com/pure-data/pure-data/graphs/contributors
>
> A couple of years ago we did update the FLOSS manual to make it clear
> it was a 'Pd Extended' manual, which I think is a good improvement,
> but more needs to be made because what I've seen over the years is
> that people are still very very very confused on what Pd's manual is
> and where to find and still think that a parallel document from almost
> 20 years ago that did represent a fork of Pd is the actual manual and
> official source. This is bad, just bad.
>
> And one thing that contributes to that is that google is still showing
> this webarchive as a top result
> https://archive.flossmanuals.net/pure-data/
>
> This is the archived version that makes it not clear at all the
> minimum changes that were made to the current manual. And it is weird
> that the old archived one shows up on the very top and on top of the
> non archived pd manual document from FLOSS.
>
> What I asked a few years ago (and I am sorry I didn't insist on it) is
> to simply at least delete the archived version of the so called 'Pd
> manual', which is not a real thing, and it is an outdated duplicated
> version of the other less confusing Pd-Extended Manual.
>
> For those unaware, Pd-extended was a fork of Pd, so not the real
> thing, and it is long gone and abandoned, for over a decade! It
> doesn't run in newer versions of macOS, for instance. Warnings have
> been made that the current Manual regards Pd Extended and is being
> kept as a historical document, and that it can still be useful if you
> adapt the examples to the current version of the official and main
> distribution of Pure Data (aka Pd Vanilla) and install the externals
> used on the book.
>
> I also mentioned how there were no plans whatsoever to start a new and
> updated manual on FLOSS Manuals. The Pd Manual resides on Miller's
> website and I hope that we can minimize the noise and confusion. Our
> (mine mostly) efforts are just in improving the official manual that
> comes with Pd Vanilla.
>
> So, this was the context of that old discussion, let me address the
> response from Mick and then reply it back.
>
> Em seg., 29 de nov. de 2021 às 13:19, Mick Fuzz
> <mick at flossmanuals.net> escreveu:
>
> Hi there,
>
> The archive site at archive.flossmanuals.net
> <http://archive.flossmanuals.net> - is a snap shot of flossmanuals
> about 7 or 8 years ago or so.
>
> So it's not straightforward to delete things from it. And well the
> idea isn't really to keep that archive up to date as it's an
> archive :) I don't think it's a good idea to subtract from an
> archive. But yes better signposting that it is an archive and
> where to find up to date things would be really useful. I'm keen
> to work on that.
>
>
> In this case, there is no point in keeping this, sorry, it's just
> making it worse and I still find people confused, to this day, that
> this is the Pd Manual. So please, let's just find a way to remove this
> archived version, and, well, if you ask me, I still find no good
> purpose on keeping the more up to date version for historical reasons
> since that software is dead for so long and can't run on modern
> computers and OSes. If anything, I can try and adapt the information
> there for Vanilla, completely out of the Floss Manuals world, and into
> the Pure Data official documentation, so I'd like to also discuss that
> option that we just remove 'Pd' stuff completely from Floss Manuals.
> Nonetheless, this would require more discussion, time and coordinated
> efforts, but for now I hope we can just remove this archived version
> that is not really contributing to anything, on the contrary.
>
> Thank you and sorry again for not following this up.
>
> Alex
>
> On 29/11/2021 10:31, Helen Varley Jamieson wrote:
>>
>> i would say delete all duplicate copies, it just makes it
>> confusing :)
>>
>> On 28.11.21 17:18, Alexandre Torres Porres wrote:
>>> Em qui., 25 de nov. de 2021 às 06:25, Mick Chesterman
>>> <M.Chesterman at mmu.ac.uk> escreveu:
>>>
>>> Hi there,
>>>
>>> I’ve been working with Alexandre Porres from the pure data
>>> community to correct older versions of our pure data manual
>>> and the current one.
>>>
>>>
>>> Hi folks, that's me!
>>>
>>> We have been updating the "current" document here =>
>>> https://en.flossmanuals.net/pd-extended/_full/
>>>
>>> One thing that was confusing is that this was referred to as a
>>> "Pure Data" manual, but was in fact a "Pd-extended" manual. We
>>> changed the title and I'm editing the first introduction page.
>>> What needs to be updated there is the fact that Pd-extended is
>>> long gone and abandoned, and it doesn't run in newer versions of
>>> macOS, for instance. Warnings have been made that the book is
>>> being kept as a historical document, and that it can still be
>>> useful if you adapt the examples to the current version of the
>>> official and main distribution of Pure Data (aka Pd Vanilla) and
>>> install the externals used on the book.
>>>
>>> By the way, there are currently no plans whatsoever to start a
>>> new and updated manual on FLOSS Manuals, or elsewhere. Anything
>>> like that is pretty unlikely to happen. Our efforts are just in
>>> improving the official manual that comes with Pd Vanilla (now
>>> currently referred to in the edits I made to the "current" FLOSS
>>> manual).
>>>
>>> ------
>>>
>>> Now, we also have this archived version of the same book. And I
>>> just don't understand why it exists. It was actually the exact
>>> same book, with the same contents as the "new one". We now have
>>> minor edits to explain the current scenario and avoid
>>> confusions, but keeping the archived version still adds noise
>>> and confusion.
>>>
>>> As for possible solutions, we can make the same changes back
>>> into the archived one. But why keep both identical books around?
>>> One archived, and another not?
>>>
>>> It just makes sense to me to delete the old archived one and
>>> just keep this new one around, which also the same document.
>>>
>>> What do you people think?
>>>
>>> Thanks a lot for your work keeping up FLOSS Manuals.
>>>
>>> Cheers
>>>
>>> _______________________________________________
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>>> Discuss at lists.flossmanuals.net
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>> --
>>
>> helen varley jamieson
>>
>> helen at creative-catalyst.com
>> http://www.creative-catalyst.com
>> http://www.upstage.org.nz
>> https://mobilise-demobilise.eu
>>
>>
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