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1.2     ! albertel    1: \label{About_Developers_Manual}
1.1       bowersj2    2: 
                      3: The purpose of this document is to introduce developers people to
                      4: LON-CAPA, and enable them to start doing real work with the system
                      5: as quickly as possible. This should prove useful both to people who
                      6: already intend to develop with LON-CAPA, and to technical people who
                      7: are evaluating LON-CAPA to see if it suits their needs. 
                      8: 
                      9: The most daunting task facing new developers is understanding how
                     10: the whole system fits together; individual pieces are usually sensible
                     11: but like any large program it is difficult to understand the forest
                     12: by looking at just the trees. Therefore, this document will start
                     13: out with the highest-level overview of the system, which can be safely
                     14: skipped if you already know what LON-CAPA is. 
                     15: 
                     16: Next, we'll look at the major subsystems of LON-CAPA and how they
                     17: fit together at a high level, with enough detail to understand the
                     18: context a given piece of the system functions in. Appropriate pointers
                     19: will be given to the detailed documentation on the various subsystems,
                     20: so this section can be used as an expanded {}``Table of Contents''.
                     21: 
                     22: Then a brief tutorial in adding a {}``handler'' to LON-CAPA will
                     23: be given, enabling you both to understand how to add brand-new functionality
                     24: to LON-CAPA, and better understand the majority of the code in the
                     25: system which is in the form of handlers.
                     26: 
                     27: Finally, the last and largest portion of this document will be extremely
                     28: detailed examinations of the subsystems from a technical point of
                     29: view, including API descriptions suitable for use in programming.
                     30: Obviously you will not need to read this over entirely, unless you
                     31: really want to know what the system can do.