Mailinglist Archive: opensuse (3120 mails)
| < Previous | Next > |
Re: [SLE] no escape from Gates?
- From: Damon Register <damon.w.register@xxxxxxxx>
- Date: Tue, 17 Dec 2002 07:08:56 -0500
- Message-id: <3DFF13D8.846ACBF@xxxxxxxx>
Anders Johansson wrote:
>
> On Monday 16 December 2002 22.33, John Andersen wrote:
> > Gates just "invented" links last year, and therefore they can be
> > quite mysterious.
Thanks Mr. Andersen for being more understanding of the difficulties
encountered by the novice
> greatly, but ideas like "removing the link does not remove the file it points
> to" are there.
but it doesn't do a lot of good to the novice if that information
that is there is not so obvious. I read about links in "Running
Linux" but it left me to wonder if deleting a link would delete
the file and I didn't want to do that.
> Well, true, and that's what the manual entry for symlinks should focus on:
> what's different. Then it can refer to the general section on files for the
> basic stuff such as rm.
That might be nice
> > The man pages for link, symlink, and ln, all sort of gloss
> > over the removal aspect.
That's putting it mildly :-(
> > In short it seems obvious to you and I, but its not
> > unreasonable for a new linux user to be confused
> > about this point.
Thanks. That's what I have been trying to say. Sure, the information
is there but the information absorbtion process is greatly slowed,
just like putting Windoze on a PC, when one has to chase all over the
book and to other sources to get it.
> maybe manuals should emphasise the unix idea "everything is a file" more
> strongly?!
>From other's posts on this topic of links, it seems that it isn't so
simple as you say. Trying to pound the idea into a novice only
hurts the learning process and he is less likely to understand
some of the small details I have just read from this thread.
Also, such blanket statements I believe result in people who say
things such as "Your regular user needs read and write permissions
on sr0 and sg0" without regard to the possibility that the devices
might be something else. Posts such as the one from oeren@xxxxxxx
on this list are MUCH more helpful. Though he didn't give the
answer, he gave me an idea to try cdparanoia alone. The problem
wasn't with cdparanoia but in verbose mode it gave me the information
I needed to solve the problem. It seems the device is /dev/sg2, not
/dev/sg0. My point is this: making generalizations or expecting
the novice reader to fill in info is bad for the learning process.
PLEASE try to be more understanding of the novice. This will have
at least two benefits for you, the more advanced user.
1. the novice will learn more and learn it more rapidly so that
he will then not have to ask so many questions about subjects
that you feel you have answered too many times
2. the novice will gain a much better understanding to the point
where he can actually contribute to the list and answer for
you those questions that you have answered so many times
Damon Register
>
> On Monday 16 December 2002 22.33, John Andersen wrote:
> > Gates just "invented" links last year, and therefore they can be
> > quite mysterious.
Thanks Mr. Andersen for being more understanding of the difficulties
encountered by the novice
> greatly, but ideas like "removing the link does not remove the file it points
> to" are there.
but it doesn't do a lot of good to the novice if that information
that is there is not so obvious. I read about links in "Running
Linux" but it left me to wonder if deleting a link would delete
the file and I didn't want to do that.
> Well, true, and that's what the manual entry for symlinks should focus on:
> what's different. Then it can refer to the general section on files for the
> basic stuff such as rm.
That might be nice
> > The man pages for link, symlink, and ln, all sort of gloss
> > over the removal aspect.
That's putting it mildly :-(
> > In short it seems obvious to you and I, but its not
> > unreasonable for a new linux user to be confused
> > about this point.
Thanks. That's what I have been trying to say. Sure, the information
is there but the information absorbtion process is greatly slowed,
just like putting Windoze on a PC, when one has to chase all over the
book and to other sources to get it.
> maybe manuals should emphasise the unix idea "everything is a file" more
> strongly?!
>From other's posts on this topic of links, it seems that it isn't so
simple as you say. Trying to pound the idea into a novice only
hurts the learning process and he is less likely to understand
some of the small details I have just read from this thread.
Also, such blanket statements I believe result in people who say
things such as "Your regular user needs read and write permissions
on sr0 and sg0" without regard to the possibility that the devices
might be something else. Posts such as the one from oeren@xxxxxxx
on this list are MUCH more helpful. Though he didn't give the
answer, he gave me an idea to try cdparanoia alone. The problem
wasn't with cdparanoia but in verbose mode it gave me the information
I needed to solve the problem. It seems the device is /dev/sg2, not
/dev/sg0. My point is this: making generalizations or expecting
the novice reader to fill in info is bad for the learning process.
PLEASE try to be more understanding of the novice. This will have
at least two benefits for you, the more advanced user.
1. the novice will learn more and learn it more rapidly so that
he will then not have to ask so many questions about subjects
that you feel you have answered too many times
2. the novice will gain a much better understanding to the point
where he can actually contribute to the list and answer for
you those questions that you have answered so many times
Damon Register
| < Previous | Next > |