Documentation

Hi,

I’ve been thinking about things I can realistically contribute to this project. I am no programmer, I’m not even a scripter, I can’t do UI design and I don’t know about Exchanges, or have a lot of cash to contribute to liquidity. All I can really do is what I do in my professional life: learning how to use systems, running infrastructure and writing documentation.

I might be able to contribute in these areas and I’ve spotted there isn’t a lot of documentation at the moment. Please correct me if I’m wrong but I’ve not been able to find much. The documentation I have found has been spread around forum posts. Don’t take this as any form of criticism. People have clearly been very busy. The people who know how to use it know and those who don’t yet are bright and can work it out.

I’m thinking ahead to when and when there is a comnet or frequent testnets, a pickup in activity and an influx of users who are completely new to the software. Brace yourself for a tidal wave of questions about the basics! To get value out of the participation of more people and for them to get value as well I think some clear documentation of the basics in one easy to find place would really help.

I’d like to have a shot at consolidating what others have written in forum posts into an area along with some things I’ve written for my own learning of how to deploy the system and use it.

I’m going to start with the things I think would be most useful at the moment to get people started:-

  • Installation of nodes for test networks
  • Installation of Baby Fleming
  • Basics of how to work with files
  • Basics of how to work with DBCs

And I’ll shamelessly plagiarise what people have written in forum posts. Iimitation is the sincerest form of flattery and blatantly copying is the sincerest form of imitation!

Is the most appropriate place for this in here?:-

I see there is the start of a guide at:-

That @Haigha and others were working on.

Would it be best to integrate what I’m going to write into that or start afresh?

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MaidSafe will have input, but personally I think this could be a very useful way to contribute. There have been efforts in the past: the Primer which was a community endeavour and still maintained by @JPL, there was also a community Wiki, and MaidSafe have at times produced quite a lot of documentation mainly for the programming APIs, though some of that has been taken down as it is out of date.

Currently though there is some relevant valid documentation on github in case you missed that, as well as some that is probably out of date. The command line interface (CLI) documentation there should be very up to date event as things are being added to the code, but I’m not sure what else - there was some design and code documentation but that’s probably very out of date now.

You might want to look at the developer forum as well https://forum.safedev.org/, and at the DevHub https://hub.safedev.org/. I think everything in both of those is out of date but it may give you some ideas on how to contribute.

A Wiki might be a way to do what you’re thinking, but it’s up to you. Whatever works.

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That would be a great initiative. Even when the info is out there, it’s often out of date, too technical/not technical enough/starts in the wrong place etc, and someone else’s take is always invaluable. Personally when I want to learn how to do something techie I search through answers on YouTube or StackOverflow til I hit on the one that speaks to me. So, the more the merrier, and plagiarise away :grin:

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Thank you for the positive responses. I’ll have think about the format and work on producing something soon.

Just to be clear though: I’m not looking to replace existing documentation. I’d be looking to produce ‘bite sized’ easy instructions for beginners to get them able to do the basics and contribute to comnets and testnets without having to ask lots of questions that have been answered before. Then link to the other locations for greater depth if they want to learn more.

I didn’t think to check github for CLI instructions and I’ll definitely read what is there. Another source to plagiarise!

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Myself, @folaht, @SmoothOperatorGR and @neik have all contributed scripts of varying complexity to help newbs get connected to their first comnet.
Commenting these scripts would be an easy way in to set out and explain the purpose of each command.
My own scripts have not been maintained for a few months but I can bring these up to date if it helps? https://github.com/safenetwork-community

EDIT: very happy to add you to this group/org if you would like to add your documentation there? That of course goes for anyone who has resources to share, just DM me.

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Currently I’m still working on to get my script working in the first place.
I have some issues with IPv6.

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I am down with covid so I cannot for a week update my scripts for the prefix map changes

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Get well soon, Chris.

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I better, I hate the black cumin (nigella sativa) :smiley:

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You ate black cumin seeds or you hate black cumin seeds?

Whatever - glad you are feeling better.

@Dimitar was punting rakia and Bulgarian pickles for COVID protection, I never heard of cumin as a cure though…

Funny you should mention that, I am out of regular cumin and just ground up the last of my black for my biryani masala. Normally I just use the black cumin to sprikle on naans.

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black cumin seed oil, it smells horrendous! it needs 100ml of honey to get it without vommiting

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Get well soon! I think the only 100% remedies are the traditional ones: rest, no stress, healthy eating and sleep. Save your energy for the next network!

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well covid is a virus, you also need some substances like ivermectin but I am out of cash right now at least I got vitamin c d k zinc black cumin aspirin

its first day I dont have fever, so it is going well

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There may well be truth in what you say,

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