17 Dec
2002
17 Dec
'02
12:08
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@ykb.com 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