========
Preamble
========


The purpose of this documentation
=================================

This document should be able to get you started as a user. For more advanced
usage, or experimental features, some of them may be buried in the
`GitHub issue tracker`_. You may also consider joining our Slack channel. The channel
is currently by invite only, but if you reach out any of our members, we are
happy to send you an invite.

.. _GitHub issue tracker: https://github.com/NICTA/cogent/issues

If you want to get involved in the development of Cogent, it is also highly recommended
to first get in touch with us. We try to list all the planned/ongoing activities
`here <https://github.com/NICTA/cogent/projects/1>`_, but for varies reasons not all can
be enumerated. Again on GitHub, some of the `open tickets <https://github.com/NICTA/cogent/issues>`_ 
are relatively straightforward (they are tagged with ``newcomer``), which can
be used as warm-up exercises.


How to read this documentation?
===============================

:doc:`quickstart` should lead you to setup the environment needed by Cogent, and
it will walk you through a few small examples to allow you to write your own code
using Cogent and run it. For a more detailed and systematic reference, later sections
of this document are there for you to consult. The :doc:`quickstart` contains links
to the relevant sections with more details.


Other materials
===============

.. todo:: Add pointers to other docs.