Carlos E. R. wrote:
On Monday, 2009-12-07 at 11:41 +0100, Per Jessen wrote:
Carlos E. R. wrote:
I once read a book, that SuSE put in the /usr/share/docsomething directory, about programming in linux. It was never finished. And it is obsolete, linux moves too fast.
We're rapidly moving OT here, but nobody really needs a book about "programming in linux". The process is (with a limited set of variations) the same as on any other operating system. If you can write code for DOS, you can also write it for linux. The tools are different, but is a matter of reading a man page or two, plus taking a peek at how somebody else did it. At least that is what I usually do :-)
A man page describes a function you already knows its name. It is no use when trying to find a function to do something you need. And it doesn't explain the process.
If I'm looking for a library function for a particular purpose, but I don't know if someone's already written it, I go and google that purpose. If I had a fairly good idea, I would try 'man -k', or 'find /usr/include -follow -type f | xargs grep -i <whatever>'. The other day I was working on a project wrt DKIM - the only code/implementation I had seen was perl-based, but with a bit of research, I discovered libdkim (pretty obvious name) as part of the sendmail package. In order use it, dkim.h is the first place to look, then perhaps some of the test programs.
No, you don't need that kind of documentation, because you already know. To me, it is daunting.
Which is an issue that can't be solved by documentation, because how would you know which document or book to read when you don't know which library you want to use.
If anyone wants to encourage new devs to come to linux, and not only young students out of school or university, such texts must be finished and provided.
Linux does not have a problem attracting new developers; I'm not convinced the lack of such texts is a real problem.
I'm sure they come, but newly trained. Not many coming from outside. IMHO.
I take it you mean 'outside' to mean "not directly from a university or similar"? As far as I can see, the opportunities for a programmer or engineer coming from an otherwise unrelated field and starting to write some code for Linux are far greater than for any other platform. If people don't take that opportunity, it's not due to lack of documentation or information. /Per -- Per Jessen, Zürich (0.0°C) -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-factory+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse-factory+help@opensuse.org