I've been using Symfony for the past 2 years. I looked in the past to Rails, but there was too much of a curve to learn Ruby, but when PHP 5.x came out, so did a set of frameworks trying to emulate some of the MVC concepts of Rails - and hence Symfony came to surface.

I loved Symfony because it had good tutorials (a full workshop to get you going from beginning to the end), great online documentation, and an active enough community.

I understand that Akelos might not yet have a large community, but what about having decent tutorials and documentation? How is anyone supposed to learn, like, and spread the word of Akelos if it lacks the HowTo?

I believe that it is OK to be critical only if one is willing to be part of the solution. Therefore, I claim the right to be critical.

Because some of us wanna-be documenters are just learning Akelos ourselves, we would need the support of those who know Akelos (on a new Documentation Forum) to correct what we don't understand, to point us to appropriate API and XREF sections for existing documentation, and to answer questions in a timely manner. If the questions that are being answered in the Akelos Programming Forum, for instance, were answered with a reference to a Wiki entry (or with a request for one), the aggregate knowledge about Akelos could grow in an organized way.

While I understand that the Akelos principals, Bermi and Salavert, cannot take the time to do the documentation themselves, perhaps they might become coaches to those who would do the work.

Here are some more specific proposals:

I would like to install a Wiki on my own server to hold documentation that is not ready to be posted. The main purpose of it is to test my Wiki formatting code. I think that MoinMoin and Trac are compatible, but I'm not sure. I read up on the installation of MoinMoin and it appears to be daunting, just because it is so powerful. Can anyone help me with that? If this help were itself made a Wiki entry, even though it was not specifically Akelos, it would help those who want to help with Akelos documentation.

On the first Wiki page, I'd like to see a full table of contents of what a complete documentation system would contain. Someone beginning documentation in a particular area could make a note that he/she has it "checked out", perhaps giving a contact point so that others might help. It appears that few are willing to put their email addresses on their profiles. Perhaps the Akelos site could be modified to enable communication between individuals without their having to reveal their email addresses.

I am a budding Akelos developer, so I have some questions that would be shared by other developers. Right now, I often have to wade through API and XREF documentation. What I am finding is that this documentation is written from the standpoint of the Akelos developer, not the Akelos user. When I see something addressed in a forum, I see things that look like they might answer my question, but it seems that there are assumptions of prior knowledge that often are not valid with me, making me feel like a real dummy. A perfect example is the one at http://forum.akelos.org/discussion/257/ It is very frustrating to see what I think I need, but to not know how to build it into my code.

One of the advantages to a framework like this is that it speeds up programming and allows the programmer to concentrate on the unique features of his project, the fun parts, if you will. Without adequate documentation about the framework, work is actually slowed down as the programmer tries to figure out how to do simple things are are adequately documented outside of the framework context in the PHP manual. Answering technical questions in a forum may help an individual solve an immediate problem, but it doesn't add to the body of knowledge as a Wiki entry does.

In the meantime, I have to place two select boxes on a form, one populated from an array and the other from a database table. What I'd like to do is to create a Wiki that will contain all the information that one needs to create a form, but I couldn't tell you right now what a form tag is, so I have to learn that, too. When this project is finished, I will have a user maintenance and authentication subsystem that I plan to share with the community.

In desiring to install a Wiki on my server for the purpose of development, I got both Trac and MoinMoin. The markup language for Trac is quite different from the Akelos Wiki. The markup language for MoinMoin is very similar, but it is still different. As I see it, the best option would be to work right on the Akelos Wiki, but in a separate area.

I hesitate to restructure the Akelos Wiki without getting clearance from Bermi, Salavert or maybe Kaste. Because what I want to do is an addition, not destroying anything that is already there, I think that I'll do two things until I get an objection.

First, I'll set up a Wiki Development Area. I'll document this area on the first page. Secondly, I'll create a Table of Contents with what I envision may be needed. It won't be complete, but it will be a start. The idea is that others may add to this Table of Contents with what they'd like to see added. One of the things that we may put in it would be the contents of the Rails Wiki, so that it would be ready for some of us to convert to Akelos.