On Thu, Oct 23, 2014 at 4:27 AM, Dave Coleman <davetcoleman@gmail.com> wrote:

> but something that's badly needed from Clearpath's perspective is a modern take on what the parts are which make up a typical ROS robot.

Its unfortunate that creating better online ROS wiki documentation isn't more prestigious or having any monetary reward as a book does, because in this day and age that is what ROS, and most software projects, really need. I've put a good amount of effort into editing the wiki but it does get tiring. Perhaps having better author attribution on the ROS wiki's conceptual pages would be more motivating.

Would it help to create a documentation SIG? Would there be enough interest in one to keep it going? I'd imagine such a SIG could coordinate to:

* Explicitly document ROS conventions, providing references to REPs where appropriate (base_link and map frames, coordinate systems, naming schemes, etc.)

* Transition useful conventions to REPs where appropriate

* Identify common ROS use cases and create tutorials for them as Mike suggested

* Update existing tutorials when new ROS releases come out

* Update existing tutorials to be more useful in general

* Poke package maintainers and developers for {more,better,any} documentation of their packages

A lot of the above exists already scattered around the wiki, but I think a concerted effort to tie it all together and fill in the blanks would be beneficial. If there's interest, I can set up a mailing list, SIG wiki page, and get things started.

Rich