Disk Drive Documents - test-drb@ccmp.vtda.org

7 Jun 1999

Well? . . . now you see why we disagree.  This doesn't just extend to you
and to me, but rather to lots of other people who use documentation
differently.  Consequently there are differing needs which I believe need to
be addressed.  This won't happen if all we do is trash the other guy's
solution.  We need to find an adequate accomodation which has the potential,
at least, of meeting almost everybody's needs with an increase in work as
the scarcity of the need increases.  Now, that may still not make you happy,
but it will at least try to prevent leaving you, or anyone else high and
dry, don't you agree?

. . . and you'll have to do more than shout to convince me that's (meaning
the fact every page is a document apart from the one major unit to which it
belongs) not a big part of why the LINUX doc's are so impenetrably muddled.

Dick
-----Original Message-----
From: Tony Duell &lt;ard(a)p850ug1.demon.co.uk&gt;
To: Discussion re-collecting of classic computers
&lt;classiccmp(a)u.washington.edu&gt;
Date: Monday, June 07, 1999 8:07 PM
Subject: Re: Disk Drive Documents

...
 >
> Now, I don't want to go off chasing another rabbit, but there is one point
...
 > about published documents that I would like to
make.  That's that I think a
...
 > complete document should be archived as a complete
document.  Lack of this
...

Archived as a complete document != is only one file once unpacked...

> unity is the reason or at least a majorly contributing factor in why the
> LINUX documentation is so screwed up, out of sync with itself, and out of
> sync with the software to which it applies.  If people can fiddle with
> individual pieces of a document in its "library" then it's not long
before
...

RUBBISH!!!.

The reason linux documentation is in small pieces is to make it easier to
keep it in sync with the software.

Look, I rewrite some bit of linux. I also rewrite the appropriate
documentation file (man page or whatever). You download them and install
them. Your on-line manual is now updated to include the changes I made to
the software.

Otherwise it would be _impossible_ to keep the documentation up to date.

> it's corrupted.  That's a positive feature for the single-document
> indivisible archive approach I prefer.  Once you have possession of a copy,
...
 > you're at liberty to fiddle with it all you
want, but not at the source.
>
> I spent the better part of a year trying to get complete documents from
> Sunsite and other loci when I had the urge to learn about LINUX.  It seemed
...
 > that EVERY PARAGRAPH was a separate file  . . .
what a PAIN.  There I sat,
...
   50 computers,
35 TB of storage available half a dozen available DS3's for
 internet traffic, and I had to type one character for every ten I
 downloaded, or so it seemed.

 There's got to be a better way.  Please tell me what it is. 
Err... Buy a book on unix (Linux includes almost everything you'd expect
to find on a unix system). Buy some of the better books on linux.
Download the archive files of documentation. Download some of the
complete manuals from the LDP. What more do you need?

-tony