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Re: [hobbit] hobbit documentation and packaging projects

From: henrik (at) hswn.dk (Henrik Stoerner)
Reply-To: hobbit (at) hswn.dk
To: hobbit (at) hswn.dk
Subject: Re: [hobbit] hobbit documentation and packaging projects
Date: Tue, 24 May 2005 22:38:02 +0200

On Tue, May 24, 2005 at 10:47:44AM -0500, T.J. Yang wrote:

> Following items that need to be done and I am willing to help on
>
> 1. Digitalize the hobbit compilation and packaging process for different
> Unixen.
> So we don't need keep answering how to compile hobbit on ??? platform
> issues.

I may be biased, but I don't think there's been that many "silly"
questions about how to build Hobbit. Most of the cases that have been
real issues have been due to my failure to write truly portable code,
and they have been dealt with by fixing the code.

There are not many silly questions because I was not on this email list ;)
You alread answered one silly question regarding to hobbit/man has html version
of manpage.


The few things that have been truly platform-specific - like the HP-UX
compiler bug that was brought up yesterday - is something that should
be documented.


Even it is fully documented, it is still need to be read and typed by
my fat fingers.  My goal is to autmoated the process as much as possible.



Building "shrink-wrap" packages of Hobbit is something that I do for my
personal use (it's just the easiest way to install it on many systems).
And for the not-quite-so-experienced admin out there I think they are
really useful to get something up and running quickly and get off to a
good start with using Hobbit, instead of struggling for a couple of days
with the fine details of configure, make etc. So there are Linux based
packages in deb- and rpm-format. I know there are NetBSD packages of
Hobbit available, and I wouldn't be surprised if someone was working on
putting it into the FreeBSD "ports" collection. But I also think that
most of the die-hard sysadmins here actually prefer to build from source :-) 

I am planning to deploy hobbit at work and we expect SMS(win32) type
of application on our Unix environment. for that to happen we need
to package server and client packges.

When this is done, the software,package build and package deployment
process will be automated just like our other applications.

I will release the package sources if hobbit community is interested.
anyone can build the hobbit package from source and customize
it at your pleasure.


For example, "gmake hobbit-4.0.3-clean;gmake hobbit-4.0.3" will
compile hobbit and its depended other software (ssl,ldap,pcre ...)
and then generate a rpm on rhlinux,a pkgadd on solaris and a depot
if run the above gmake command on hpux.




> 2. Set up a hobbit wiki page/book  (on mediawiki ?)
>    I like mediawiki because there is a command line client in perl to
>   automate the wikipage update.
>
> 3. Prepare the hobbit document in docbook format ?
>    The docbook format is the final resting place of hobbit wiki.
>    So we can generate pdf and rtf  easily.

I know there was/is a Wiki for BB. If you feel it would be useful for
Hobbit, go ahead - it's not a format I use very much. Probably just
me being old-fashioned - e-mail and newsgroups are my preferred
communication methods.

> Seriouslly, please follow up this thead to let me know your comment.
> Should I spend the efforts on these tasks ? Are you willing to help etc...

I really appreciate your willingness to undertake some work on Hobbit,
especially with documentation which most programmers really try to
avoid. I do write documentation, but I may be an exception - it's simply
because when the documentation exists, I get more time to do the
interesting stuff (code) since I don't have to spend so much time
answering questions.

I really appreciate your willingness to underake the work to make bb open-source
and alive again ;) Better yet, you fix the BB's performance and other issues.

For that I am willing to pick up the missing parts of work haven't done yet.



But before you embark on this, ask yourself: What problem will I solve
by doing this ? Setting up a Wiki is fine - but only if it gets used.
For that to happen, there must be stuff there that people want to read.
So what's missing today - is it the "beginners guide to monitoring your
network" ? Or a "How to monitor your datacenter and survive" guide ?
Or maybe a "Building graphs for your Boss" description?


Build it  and they will come.

http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/System_Monitoring_with_Hobbit

Pardon the dust, it is created today and still fresh.


I guess, what I'm trying to say is that you should narrow your focus
- at least to begin with. Then, when you have something going, you can
broaden the scope.


Thanks for advice, I am taking notes.


tj



Henrik


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