[ros-users] review: catkin documentation review for package.xml format 2

[Jack O'Quin]

On Thu, May 22, 2014 at 8:22 PM, Francis Belliveau
<f.belliveau at comcast.net>wrote:

> Jack,
>
> I am responding to you outside review channels because I am way too new to
> ROS to be comfortable participating in public discussions.
>

Perhaps you intended to e-mail me privately. Please note that responding on
ros-users is *far* more public than using the suggested doc review link:

  https://github.com/ros/catkin/pull/634


> I read the overview level documentation and it made sense are far as it
> went.
>
> What I find missing is a reference to the schema for a package XML
> document.  I am actually surprised that the documentation does not mention
> any of the normal XML meta data that one normally places before the main
> document element identifying the schema, namespaces and/or XSLT references.
>
> One of the reasons that I am having trouble understanding how to get
> started with ROS is because the beginner tutorials do not include links to
> "all the gory details and possibilities".  The documentation can solve all
> that by just providing a reference to the schema file and it would be the
> readers problem to figure out how to expand upon the simple examples
> provided.
>
> The first thing that cam to mind reading the overview was when I got to
> the second code segment listing "authors".  That was followed by the
> "URLs".  There was nothing to tell me where these should be placed within
> package.xml.  I am sure that I could dig into the tutorials and find the
> information, but, understanding XML the way I do, I would prefer to figure
> it out myself from the schema definition.
>

An XML schema definition would be great. If I were competent to create one,
I would do that immediately.


> Just my opinion.
> You people are doing great things.  I very much like ROS at the conceptual
> level but cannot seem to figure out where to start.


I welcome your useful and constructive criticism.
-- 
 joq
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