Vote to bring NaturalDocs to Flash and w'll match each vote with a $1 donation!

I'm starting a campaign that is long overdue and (literally) putting my money where my mouth is: We need a standard, open-source documentation format for ActionScript 2 and NaturalDocs is just the candidate. Unfortunately, it currently doesn't have ActionScript support.

That will change however, if you send an email to NaturalDoc's author, Greg Valure, at gregv.nosp@m.alure@natural.nosp@m.docs.org asking for ActionScript 2 support to be added.

Furthermore, for every vote that you CC me on at ar.nosp@m.al@flash.nosp@m.ant.org, Ariaware will donate $1 for the cause until we have up to twice the current highest donation at the time of this writing (which is currently $120 for Ada support). Even if we don't get enough votes, we'll donate enough to put full language support for ActionScript at the top of the list but we can't do it with a donation alone: Your votes will make the difference.

We only need 12 votes to beat C++ but I want to see 240 votes!

What is NaturalDocs?

Unlike JavaDoc, with its own syntax that is anything but easily readable, NaturalDocs does most of its work by examining your code and creating documentation from it. Where it uses your comments, the formatting it requires is intuitive ("natural") and unimposing. The idea behind this is that your comments and thus your code are kept readable. This is very important, especially for those of us who strive towards literate programming, where the comments are perhaps even more important than the code itself (think maintainability, scalability and team development!)

Why NaturalDocs?

With NaturalDocs, you spend your time writing readable comments and NaturalDocs does the hard work of converting that into pristine HTML documentation. And what do you do? You concentrate on expressing your intent as clearly as possible and implementing your business logic -- which is what you should be spending the majority of your time doing with any good development process (I love Agile Development, and specifically eXtreme Programming, for a reason!)

Furthermore, since NaturalDocs is open-source, it can be extended upon by members of the Flash Community to fit our current and future needs. Support and tools can be developed, for example, for including output in the Flash documentation panel or in any future Flash help panel or documentation extension.

It's also cross-platform and runs on Windows, Mac, Linux, etc.

Why are you doing this?

It's not because I have money to burn but because I want to see us raise the standards of Flash and RIA development. This is why we released the Ariaware RIA Platform (ARP) as open source and this is why I'm touring the world talking about Best Practices Flash Development. The time for RIAs is here but we need standards, mature development tools and reliable development processes to guarantee that Flash and Flash-related technologies maintain their place as the leading technologies in this field. It's all about lowering the risks, perceived and actual, that surround RIA development.

The uptake of ARP, especially by leading Flash community members, has been amazing to behold. (One of my more memorable ARP experiences occurred after my talk in Belgium when an attendee walked up to me and said that his medium-sized company had considered RIAs but had decided against it but after seeing ARP, he was going to get his company to reconsider.) ARP is quickly becoming the standard structural framework for Flash and Flex RIAs but there are still areas in which the industry is lacking. One of these is the lack of a standard, open documentation system for ActionScript 2. This is where NaturalDocs comes in.

You can make a difference, vote now!

Send an email to NaturalDoc's author, Greg Valure, at gregv.nosp@m.alure@natural.nosp@m.docs.org asking for ActionScript 2 support to be added to NaturalDocs and CC me on at ar.nosp@m.al@flash.nosp@m.ant.org. For every vote that I get CCed on, Ariaware will donate $1 for the cause until we have up to twice the current highest donation at the time of this writing (which is currently $120 for Ada support). Even if we don't get enough votes, we'll donate enough to put full language support for ActionScript at the top of the list but we can't do it with a donation alone:

Your votes will make the difference!

Comments