YAPC::Europe 2011 in Riga

YAPC::Europe 2011 “Modern Perl”

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Euclid, Socrates and Mill - Quality in Documentation

By Matt S Trout (‎mst‎) from northwestengland.pm, dahut.pm, drinkers.pm, lgbt.pm
Date: Monday, 15 August 2011 11:40
Duration: 40 minutes
Target audience: Any
Language:
Tags: community documentation project teaching


Earlier this year, your presenter made the choice (mistake?) to finally
read Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, a decision which set off
a long chain of thought about how to introduce and elucidate both concepts
of programming and the details of libraries and languages.

We'll talk about Euclid's Elements, the Socratic Dialogue style, and Mill's
work both on utilitarianism and libertarianism and how they relate to
different styles of learning and of teaching.

Then by the power of interstitial puns, we'll digress entirely into
the origins and anatomy of potential and existing users' perceptions of
quality in both documentation and the presentation of a project as a whole.

Some time after that, there may be a point.

Or not. Philosophy can be like that sometimes.

Attended by: