[TOS] Scribd

[tosmaillist.neophyte_rep at ordinaryamerican.net]

2010/6/27 Karsten Wade - kwade at redhat.com wrote:
><snip>
> My concern is, we have a tight deadline to do
> work before end of August.  Is a toolset review and switch a good idea
> right now?
>
> Is anyone interested in getting a tool review underway?  I think I can
> enumerate many MUST have attributes fairly well, to give us a place to
> start from.
>
> - Karsten

That's the second time you've mentioned being schedule driven.  It's
my experience schedule must be balanced against quality.  It is also
recognized that without a schedule, perfect quality will be sought
without any possible achievement.

It's also been my experience that building data with a schedule-driven
choice of data manipulation tools locks in that tool set rather
permanently.  Few people like to transcribe a large set of data they
have spent precious time creating.

I hope University level courses are still trying to instill the
understanding that design should precede creation.  In my paradigm,
that includes a careful consideration of tools before they are used.

All the above is my way of suggesting that maybe now is a better time
to make a careful selection of our textbook creation tools rather than
later, especially in light of the other discussion of how well
'Practical Open Source Software Exploration'  0.8 has been received, (
http://teachingopensource.org/pipermail/tos/2010-June/001283.html ).
If you are setting August as the date for 0.9, having no feedback on
the use of 0.8, I suggest your schedule is ambitious.  Whether you
present 0.8 or 0.9 at OSCON, you will be presenting a Work In
Progress.  Of course, even 1.0 will be a WIP since the subject matter
will evolve.

In my opinion, a tool set review and switch is a very good idea at
this stage of the project.

NeoPhyte_Rep