The speed with which ruby on rails has achieved success as a web framework is mind blowing. Along the way, many great features have been created by the core team and by the community as well. There have been some decent attempts at creating good supporting documentation, but they have been mostly fragmented and not generally effective for most developers.
<p>Ruby on the other hand has been around for many years. There is the de facto documentation on <a href="http://www.ruby-doc.org/core/">ruby-doc.org</a>, but sometimes you want a little more. There is also the <a href="http://groups.google.com/group/comp.lang.ruby/topics">ruby-lang</a> list which hides literally thousands of gems, but who has time to search through those?</p>
<p>Now as ruby and rails developers, we have already crossed the threshold of what most would consider the status quo, so why does our supporting documentation need to follow what most are used to. The same out of the box thinking applied to the framework needs to be applied to how we document our goodies as well. I have to give major kudos to Geoffrey Grosenbach and Ryan Bates for their excellent screencast series. And since some say that immitation is one the sincerest forms of flattery, I’ve attempted to throw my hat in the ring with own series of Smarticasts.</p>
<p>You know, we can do even better than this. In my last <a href="http://smartic.us/2007/10/7/what-rails-needs-is-more-documentation-or-something">rant about documentation</a>, a few people emailed trying to get a dialog started. I do believe that this is a step in the right direction, but my sights are are aimed real high on this. I want to encourage everyone to go out and explain something about ruby or rails. I’m not thinking of a blog post on some random subject. I’m thinking of a full blown frontal assault on a specific subject. (or a range of specific subjects for you over achievers)</p>
<p>Do you have a passion for testing? Well if so, take it by the horns and write or podcast or screencast how it should be done. Multiple times. With passion.</p>
<p>Are you a rails internals wizard? Demonstrate why some of the choices were made. Explain how obscure things work. Multiple times. With passion.</p>
<p>Was the <a href="http://eigenclass.org/hiki.rb?cmd=view&p=happy2007-ruby-challenge&key=2007%2Bchallenge">Happy 2007!</a> challenge child’s play to you? Explain how the hell it worked, and how I could make my own challenge. Multiple times. With passion.</p>
<p>The whole point is to document something. Multiple times. With passion. There is no formula for success. And if you get stuck just think…. What would <span class="caps">DHH</span> do?</p>
<p>This is my challenge to the community. I’m attempting to do my part because you can’t fail unless you try.</p>
