Robert P. J. Day wrote:
On Sun, 30 Dec 2007, Karl Larsen wrote:
David Boles wrote:
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
Hash: SHA1
Robert P. J. Day wrote:
i will (sort of) agree with you. yes, finley's website
had/has piles of cool advice on how to do things. my only beef
with it is that it is simply too verbose. here's an example --
how to install yumex:
http://www.stanton-finley.net/fedora_core_5_installation_notes.html#Yumex
sure, that explanation is correct but, man, it's wordy.
what's wrong with just saying: "as root, run
# yum -y install yumex"
seriously, how many times do you need to be told to open a
terminal and type "su"? yes, i realize that's being annoyingly
picky, but why take 15 lines to say what can be said just as
accurately in two?
It's all part of the dumbing down that Linux is going through.
The Infinite monkey theorem. ;-)
I disagree. If you drive the documentation train Fedora will go
down in flames.
you're right, karl ... and that's because i am the all-knowing and
infinitely powerful rday, and i have the frightening ability to
single-handedly destroy one of the world's most popular linux distros
by writing documentation the way i prefer and publishing it on my wiki
where people can choose to read it. or not. tremble before me!
tremble, i say, puny humans! BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!
um ... sorry, where was i? oh, right.
What you use as an example of poor instruction is the best I have
seen in a long time. He tells you what it is. He tells you how to
get it. He tells you where it is on your computer. Then he goes to
the next subject on the same page which is Java.
except that mr. finley's section on java is a good example of what i
think is the (admittedly nitpicky) drawback to his otherwise stellar
online HOWTOs -- it's unnecessarily verbose and repetitive:
http://stanton-finley.net/fedora_core_5_installation_notes.html#Java
seriously, what's the advantage of constantly typing:
Type:
# command
Hit enter.
over and over again? sure, it's correct, but after a while, it gets
kind of monotonous and annoying. i mean, really, karl, how many
people do you know who need to be told repeatedly to hit ENTER after
typing in a command?
oh, wait ... forget i asked that.
You power users are a small group. You just want the basics man!
There are a lot more people who are new users who will like the way
Finley did it. He went to Umbuto because you guys drove him there.
i'm pretty sure you meant "umberto", but most of us probably
translated that automatically, karl.
But if you have your way there will be no more new users.
nonsense, karl. i promise to use my new superpowers only for good.
happy now?
rday
--
========================================================================
Robert P. J. Day
Linux Consulting, Training and Annoying Kernel Pedantry
Waterloo, Ontario, CANADA
Home page: http://crashcourse.ca
Fedora Cookbook: http://crashcourse.ca/wiki/index.php/Fedora_Cookbook
========================================================================
Not really rday. We are not all perfect like you. But if we try we
do good work. How long did it take you to write your instructions for
jigdo? I hope it about 30 minutes. Mine took 6 hours and it isn't right yet.
Karl
--
Karl F. Larsen, AKA K5DI
Linux User
#450462 http://counter.li.org.
PGP 4208 4D6E 595F 22B9 FF1C ECB6 4A3C 2C54 FE23 53A7
