Sire

I'm busy writing all of the documentation for the software development project. Its a lot of fun, as it is giving me the chance to put down on paper many things that have, until now, just been rattling around in my head, or buried in code. I'm writing the documentation on the other end of a dodgy internet connection (still waiting to move into my new place...), and it has got me thinking about how such documentation could be managed and shared with the community. In an ideal world, documentation would be written by a community, and edited in place and online. This would allow everyone to contribute, and everyone could see the latest version. However, to do this would mean that documentation writers would all need good quality internet connections, as document editing would occur either via a wiki page or shared document editing site (e.g. google docs). This doesn't quite fit with how people work, as typically, I find myself writing documentation in different locations (coffee shops, parks etc.), thereby avoiding home and work distractions, and I prefer to disconnect the internet connection so that I am not distracted by email or chat. I like to write documentation in the same way that I write code - in short bursts in a peaceful environment, where I am not going to be disturbed. This is because writing is a very focussed activity, and I find I need to concentrate hard for sustained blocks of time, or else nothing of significance or use is written. I therefore need a tool that lets me write documentation offline, and then sync it back to the website when I am next online (with full conflict resolution tools). Kind of like "svn" for documents. Documents are richer than text files, so something that syncs latex is not sufficient (I want a nice, wysiwyg interface with easy drawing tools). Microsoft provides such functionality with word, but it is quite clunky. Google docs requires an always-on online connection. Which then brings me to iWork... Pages provides a nice interface for writing documentation, and iWork.com provides a way to share copies of the documents (documents can be viewed on the web in a browser, with automatic PDF, .pages and .doc downloads provided). People can comment on the documents, however I don't know if group editing is supported (I cannot see anything about it on the website). If they allowed group editing of documents, and supported public (anonymous) viewing, then it could be ideal. For now, the exact format of the documents is now important, as I am just writing them myself, so I am just using iWork Pages (which can export in pretty much any format). However, the question of what tools we should use to write documentation should be answered before other people join the project...