[antlr-interest] [v3] Lack of documentation

[Jim Idle]

> -----Original Message-----
> From: antlr-interest-bounces at antlr.org [mailto:antlr-interest-
> bounces at antlr.org] On Behalf Of Scott Stanchfield
> Sent: Monday, July 02, 2007 6:39 AM
> To: 'Terence Parr'; 'ANTLR Interest'
> Subject: Re: [antlr-interest] [v3] Lack of documentation
> 


> I'M SAYING THE ANTLR v3 LICENSE IS BS IF PEOPLE MUST PAY FOR THE BASIC
> DOCS.
> 

I think that the point is that you are NOT forced to buy the book, in
the same way you are not forced to buy lots of books on PHP, Java or the
dragon book (especially the latest edition) and so on. It contains a lot
of information and some good crib sheets, and doesn't really cost very
much, and whether there is a billion pages in the wiki just a month or
so after release or not it still worth a read for the price of a few
beers/Starbucks/movies. 

There isn't anything on the site that says you have to buy the book for
the stuff to make any sense. And maybe for people that have some prior
ANTLR experience, the wiki will eventually be just as good, if not
better. However, the book is a single start point for people who don't
yet know what the heck they should be looking up on the wiki.

I think that you probably pushed buttons you were not expecting to, but
nevertheless I think you may have to consider that you were a little
over-zealous when claiming that the BSD license is BS for this product?
Also, perhaps you might be able to excuse Ter from being a little wound
up about the thread by the time you joined in? 

I don't think that Ter or anyone is actually offended by reasonable
comments about how much documentation is available, on the wiki or
anywhere. Everyone knows that it isn't all together yet and those people
who have respectfully asked (which isn't too much to be asked of
anyone?) about documentation usually receive sympathy and a
reinforcement that it will get there.

Perhaps now, we can end this thread and rather than post messages
telling people what their posts should look like, we just need to
establish a guideline that "one must be polite"(1).

Jim

(1) Unless you buy the book, which comes with a license to kill ;-)