David Boles wrote:
Does not yelp do all, or most, of the 'help' calls? I have never really
tried, or cared, because most 'help files' are a waste of time.
Developers and such write really good code but they, sorry developer
people, tend to stink at docs, helps, and howtos', ;-)
Yes, I believe yelp will handle them all. Now, when it comes to help
files, or manual pages, usually the developer is the worst person to
be writing it. It is too easy to forget to include minor details
that you do without really thinking about it. The best way is if you
can work with an "average user" of your program, and see if they
understand what you wrote, and can use the program from just the
documentation. If they can use the basic functions without looking
at the documentation, that is even better.
As you say, the skills needed to write good code, and the skills
needed to write good documentation are not the same. It is unusual
to find a person that is good at both. What is needed are people
that are good at writing documentation, and understand the program,
to write better documentation. It would also help to have people go
through the existing man pages and update them to match the current
state of the programs.
As for the 'help files' for this really simple GUI? One that 'Joe
Average user' will/should probably *never* use or even see? And probably
would *not* read the help if it was there. And that Joe 'I know what the
heck I am doing' Administrator should know without a simple helpme file?
The GUI that I looked at had, for example, an 'Add user' button. And an
Edit user' button. And a 'Delete user' button. You need instructions for
this? Think about this. If you need simple 'help me!!' instructions for
this *you should not be here doing this!*.
I tend to agree with you. But then again, I like using command line
tools for jobs like this, so I am probably not the best judge of
this. Then again, considering the post that started this thread, I
guess help is needed, because users are going to be using this
program even if they do not know what they are doing. If nothing
else, it lets the writers sneak in a little advice on best practices
and security. (I have not read through the help files to see if they
actually do this.)
<rant mode on>
IMO - and I do understand what is happening here - the *dumbing down* of
Linux so that it will attract *dumb Windows users* (not my words, or
thoughts, just the general thinking of some elitist Linux users) has
created a whole generation of Windows users turned Linus users that are
*dumb*. Not *dumb* but just don't have any idea what the heck is going
on or why.
If you follow this list you will see it every day. "I don't know what
this is, or why it is like this, but I changed it and now my <fill in
the blank here> which used to work does not work." And when someone, who
knows what is/might be wrong, can help me fix it, and tries to help me I
will argue with them?
<rant mode off>
Grrr...
I know exactly how you feel. I wounder if Fedora is really the
distribution they should be using. You never know if there is a
Fedora problem, or if they broke something themselves. Users like
this are one of the reasons I don't give nearly as much advice as I
used to, and if others are giving help, I usually leave it to them.
You also get the ones that when ever something does not work the way
they expect it to, it is a bug. So, like the boy who cried wolf, if
by chance they do discover a bug, they get ignored.
What really makes me chuckle is that we did find what looks like a
bug in system-config-users, but it is not what the OP complained about.
Mikkel
