Design Documentation

Further to my post in the NTFS thread (about the location of E/F+ format documentation):

Is there any intention to make the likes of component functional specifications available (where they exist, of course)?

A mass of source code is one thing; a bunch of supporting documents detailing the design decisions involved would significantly lower the barrier to actually doing anything with the sources.

We’re working on just that. There is some debate as to whether to put them on the Wiki, convert them into PRM format, etc. To be honest, we’ll probably go with the simplest option which at least is reasonably consistent at this stage.

As a first step, I’ve put the URI handler specification on the Wiki. I was prompted by a c.s.a.p post.

A variety of other specifications have now been published. They’ve been more or less just dumped into the Wiki with little modification, so the styles vary from specification to specification. Over time, either the documents will get rewritten in Textile markup for consistent appearance, or they’ll get integrated into the PRMs.

Can you supply things like the DCI4 spec (which has been NDAed, supposedly for security-by-obscurity reasons, but circulates unofficially)? Or a position on whether the NDA should still be enforced (ie can I put the copy I have on my website)?

I don’t think anyone’s too bothered by the formatting at the moment – just getting the information is more important.