[Asterisk-Users] Context restrictions

[Philipp von Klitzing]

Hiya!

> I hear you. I've started a brief introduction on
> http://www.voip-info.org/tiki-index.php?page=Asterisk+introduction
> Do you think I'm totally off the road or on the way to what you're looking for?

Wow - Olle (and others here), I have been around for a week or so on this 
list, and I am still amazed of the speed of things here!

> A better and more detailed introduction can be found in the Asterisk
> handbook by 

That one I know (the draft), but that misses a bit on what I have in 
mind. Your intro is more in the direction of what I have in mind but I'd 
suggest a couple of changes:

- a bit less details and more global picture "what can I do with this?"

So do also mention music-on-hold (incl. streaming), web frontend for 
voicemail, Festival (text-to-speech), fax (in the works as we all know) 
next to what you have already in that section. Also the codecs should 
appear somewhere (as list, similar to the protocols and right below 
them). A slightly better "human understandable" oveview of what agents 
are good for would also be great (a practical real-world example).

- the context part is a bit too long; it might be good to mention a term 
like "access rights" in there as well because "context" as such doesn't 
suggest this functionality

- the NAT issue and the "solution" IAX can use a short but big mention as 
well. That's one of the strongest points * can offer

- question: what is * lacking compared to commercial PBX, what is it that 
* cannot do and is not good at? That would help to draw the borders and 
limit the map of where * can be and should be used.

- in the very first paragraph: Very shortly explain PSTN and PBX, at 
least for non-english nationals all those abbreviations are a big hurdle 
at the start (took me a while to learn what "you people" meant with PRI 
and BRI as in Germany we have *slightly* different names for that ;->)

- astman and gastman also need a mention: What are they to be used for? 
Note: I played a bit with both, but since I currently only test with X-
Lite due to the lack of IP phones (trying to get my hands on two 
Swissvoice, still no success) I see no use in those tools, they don't 
seem to work with SIP channels at all.

- "Development" for me means working on the Asterisk code base, so I'd 
reword that to something like "scripting Asterisk" (I guess you get the 
idea). I think there is quite a difference between contributing core code 
(few people do that and feel capable) and playing with AGI scripts in 
PHP, PERL etc. If you could include those buzzwords (PHP, PERL, Pyhton as 
well I think) it would round up the picture.

- Also: Might be nice to explain that there aren't really Asterisk 
"releases" available (like in other projects). Although I read "you must 
use CVS" I thought "hey, maybe later when I am an * nerd, but no need to 
do that now".

> I haven't looked into agents and queues myself and no one else have added
> info on it to the wiki. The Wiki is a community effort, so you're more than
> welcome to dig into the world of agents and queues and explain it.

Still learning, and I am sure I'll get to that as well... :.-)

Cheers, Philipp