[Development] Documentation proposal: Remove recommended reading list of 20-year-old books

[Sze Howe Koh]

On 30 August 2015 at 16:32, Hausmann Simon
<Simon.Hausmann at theqtcompany.com> wrote:
> I think that there is a b‎ig difference between it being easy enough to find reading material and us - the project - making specific recommendations for material that we think is of particularly high quality and perhaps also relevance. The latter adds real value to our documentation.
>
> I think that if there is evidence that the currently suggested material is not suitable anymore, then it would be great to replace it with another recommendation.

That's fair enough.

I think the recommendation has been "backwards" for a long time now.
It basically says, "Beginners should read these platform-specific
books on multithreading, before reading the Qt documentation on
multithreading". However, the Qt docs already explains the basics in a
way that doesn't assume prior knowledge.

If we're to replace the recommendation, I would (i) present it as
"further reading", not "recommended reading before starting", and (ii)
pick a book that showcases C++11 threads, not the low-level
platform-specific threads.

If someone has personally found a particular book very helpful in this
topic, I'd be happy to add it. Otherwise, I'll proceed as originally
planned. We have 3 votes for removal (including my own) and 2 votes
for replacement.


>   Original Message
> From: Sze Howe Koh
> Sent: Sunday, August 30, 2015 09:49
> To: development at qt-project.org
> Subject: [Development] Documentation proposal: Remove recommended reading list of 20-year-old books
>
>
> Hi all,
>
> http://doc.qt.io/qt-5/threads.html#recommended-reading points readers
> to some books about multithreading. These books were published between
> 1995 and 1997, and have been well and truly superseded by newer ones.
>
> Rather than update the list, I plan to remove it completely. I don't
> think this list belongs in the Qt docs, just like how we don't
> maintain a list of "learning C++" books. It's easy enough these days
> to find reading material for these foundational topics.
>
> Any objections?
>
>
> Regards,
> Sze-Howe