[BoW] r14 - trunk/video_coding/qns.txt

[Attila Kinali]

Moin,

On Wed, 15 Oct 2008 13:20:07 -0200
"Ramiro Polla" <ramiro.polla at gmail.com> wrote:

> I don't mean for you to answer these here, but rather try to imagine
> what someone will be thinking when reading this.
> 
> There is a target audience defined which expects a minimum knowledge
> (so some of these questions I asked here don't really have to be
> explained in details), but the text in this book is becoming very
> terse.

The minimum knowledge is actually quite high. We expect
people to know what a Fourier Transformation is and what
properties it has (if the reader doesn't know, there are
tons of books about that, no need for us to dublicate that
information)
 
> Do we expect this book to be one that might be used by some professor
> in a course or a reference for people that are already skilled in
> multimedia coding?

No, the expectations are written in README.authors and
i wrote them in prosa in the introduction. We do not expect
people to have a PhD in math, but high school math (ok,
the level of swiss high schools, as i dont know others)
is the minimum, with the extension that the reader should
have some basics in signal theory (also easy to read up,
even on wikipedia). Ie the level of math you'd have if
you've are a (low class) bachelor in an engineering field,
probably even less.

> Will it have a glossary and appendices? 

yes, yes

> Will it first introduce a
> topic, defining what the reader must know before reading a chapter,
> what it is and what it is for?

The outline of the book is also written in README.authors.
There will be a Part 0 which should be known to the reader and
goes over the basic stuff.
Other than that, chapters shouldn't be based on each other
unless they naturaly fit together.

> And then gradually explain things in details? 

To some extend yes.

> Or is the book going to be comprised of very specific and
> terse information that can only be parsed by someone that already
> knows the subject?

As i said in my announcement, it is meant to teach people
the basics and the details of video coding.

> Text like this might scare people away...

Well, I asked Jason for this section in question to be
written, even if it is terse, not complete, missing
stuff, not formated, etc pp... I'd rather clean up
and extend a section who someone has written who knows
about that stuff, then trying to write everything myself.

Beside, the book is still only a skeleton, a lot of things
will need to be written until we can really call it a book.
Until then, we will probably rewrite stuff that we write now
a few times until it fits nicely together.

I appreciate your review of this section, but at the moment
content in all sections is more important than having a nice
text in a few sections that explains everything but will never
be commited, because it's not yete perfect.

And as such, please feel free to correct, extend, rewrite
anything you don't like and most importantly add some sections
about topics you know :-)

			Attila Kinali
-- 
If you want to walk fast, walk alone.
If you want to walk far, walk together.
		-- African proverb