Wiki/Report of Meeting 2022-11-10
Report of Meeting 2022-11-10
Present: Art Anger, Devon McCormick and Bob Therriault
1) Bob reviews the suggestions that Art has provided on the structure of the prototype wiki https://code2.jsoftware.com/wiki/Main_Page.
Bob-- Please consider revisions on several pages, as listed below. Thanks. --Art
a) https://code2.jsoftware.com/wiki/Main_Page/Reference Identify and link to "J wiki team". Not able to find the instance of "J wiki team", but agreed that the About Wiki page should be made more prominent for feedback. At time of producing this report the reference has been found and the email link has been added.
b) Eliminate overlap of navigational boxes. Change to navigational boxes made
c) https://code2.jsoftware.com/wiki/Main_Page/Newcomers Learning and Installation should most logically come after playground (in either order)--in all listings. Changes made to that navigation bar
d) https:?? (vertical list of screen-wide main categories) Begin with a table of contents, because most are initially offscreen. May be done by making a collapsible sidebar.
e) https://code2.jsoftware.com/wiki/Nav/Newcomers I haven't figured out how to remove the border of the empty box after "Home". (We could just use colspan=6.)I don't see the value of doubling the file count by having a separate Nav page for each topic page. One page can contain a few sample lines to be copied (and perhaps edited) into relevant locations. Nav Bars would just be on the top 4 levels of the wiki. Cleaned up with the extra lines by setting borders to none on the main table.
f)https://code2.jsoftware.com/wiki/Main_Page/JPlayground Use the word "Terminal", or 'Display", in place of ambiguous "Term". Term refers to the name in Playground. It may be a good idea to change to Terminal. JQt uses term for some of its commands, but calling it Terminal feels more correct. We'll see what the J playground team thinks about this.
g)Show "Play" instead of scary "https://jsoftware.github.io/j-playground/bin/html2/". Probably should be done by using footnotes as has been done on the main page
h)The file display of playground should not be an active link; the picture is not what the newcomer is trying to go to. The display should be labeled as an inactive portrayal, not the playground. High magnification by a single click is likely a nuisance for most users. Ctl-click would be a less intrusive feature. Change made to make the image non-clickable
2) Discussion of whether the "J Code Search bar should be at the top of the page above the breadcrumb navigation bars. It is something that Bob will look at as it would make it more conducive to narrower screens.
3) Bob also showed that the depth of the breadcrumbs had been reduced by one level by avoiding a duplication of the parent page and the overview placeholder.
4) Devon plans to continue working on the NYCJUG content as there is a great deal of useful content within those meetings. Devon also mentioned a discussion that had happened at the most recent NYCJUG meeting about the balance between education and evangelism. He also talked about having more advanced material that would be able to support developers. Something along the line of Nick Psaris' books on q. https://www.amazon.ca/Tips-Fast-Scalable-Maintainable-Kdb/dp/9881389909
5) Art will continue to work on assigning levels of expertise to the essays as a way to further categorize levels.https://code2.jsoftware.com/wiki/Essays/Newcomers The big challenge of this is to create a useful grading system that does not require too much curation. If this balance can be hit, it may be a very useful model for similar challenges in different sections of the wiki. It may also be possible to divide the difficulties across different categories, so that a difficult math essay might also be an easy programming essay.
For access to previous meeting reports https://code.jsoftware.com/wiki/Wiki_Development
If you would like to participate in the development of the J wiki please contact us on the general forum and we will get you an invitation to the next J wiki meeting held on Thursdays at 24:00 (UTC) Next meeting is November 17th, 2022.