[kaffe] GC Documentation

[Jim White]

valester at tiscali.it wrote:

> Hi !
> We are waiting for the kaffe Garbage Collector documentation. Why 
> don't you send us ?
> Kaffe has a free source code so why is it a problem for you to send us 
> the GC documentation ?
> It is difficult understand the GC only from the GC source code and 
> from the short description in the F.A.Q. section.
> Please, send us the GC source code documentation.
> Thanks.

I would like to reply in an amusingly rhetorical fashion because I did 
get a chuckle from your post.  But I know humor doesn't cross language 
and culture barriers very well, so I'll refrain.

Given that:

A) Documentation in OSS projects is much less common than code (because 
most programmers naturally prefer to write code rather than 
documentation and they usually have no incentive to do anything they 
don't feel like doing for OSS).

and:

B) Documentation is so valuable (useful for the reasons you cite but 
rare for the reasons in A) that it would be unusual indeed for it to be 
omitted from an OSS project web site.

I'm sure you can deduce that the most likely reason you've received no 
response is that no further Kaffe-specific GC documentation exists.

A great way for a new programmer to contribute to an OSS project is to 
write documentation.  By writing down the things you learn and problems 
you solve while figuring out how the system works, you answer exactly 
the questions other new developers have.  This is how OSS works.  You 
might even be able to get some class credit from your professor.

I hope I've been helpful.

Jim White