----- Original Message -----
From: Keith Warno
Documentation on kernel source code?!
Um. nope. :) An occassional block comment before a function and that's about it.
That makes sense, I haven't seen "Learn to low level kernel hack the Linux 2.2.14 kernel in 24 hours!" or "Tweaking, debuging and optimizing the Linux kernel for dummies". "Learn how to port the linux kernel by hand in ASM to any 32 bit CPU in under 10 days!"
I agree, yes, perl5 is well documented; ya can learn the language w/ the perl5 ref manual alone. When it comes to ducumentation tho, it's really a per-software package sort of thing. After that it's per-distribution. There isn't much of a standard, I suppose, when it comes to
documentation --
either end-user docs or programmer docs (ie, code comments); sometimes code has comments but usually it doesn't. Sometimes a prog has a man, sometimes it has an info page, sometimes it has both, and then sometimes it has neither.
GNU _tries_ to have standards for both of these. But even then, when yer dealing with the end-user average Joe with a wincrap mindset (whom the "Linux for the Masses" would be targeted at), yer phucked. info isn't the easiest thing to navigate. :)
If you know what the command does and just pull the all to commen "!@$! what was that parameter" info command and in 10-30 seconds you suddenly "Remember" what the parameter for xyz command is. But have a "difficult" system to use for certain users, isn't the fault of bad documentation, the user first has to read it then practice it before they become comfortable with it. Even if MVS had allot of documents and community support it would still be difficult for me to use it. Same goes for any other OS that I haven't used before or not on a daily basics like openVMS or "Quatuim Joe's Discount OS and Alarm Clock - Now for the GTH 4900 CPU with discount value"
----- Original Message ----- From: "Jack Barnett"
To: "SJ Black" ; "Keith Warno" ; Sent: 18 February 2000, Friday 09:27 Subject: Re: [SLE] mind if I vomit? | | ----- Original Message ----- | From: SJ Black
| To: Keith Warno ; | Sent: Friday, February 18, 2000 1:16 AM | Subject: Re: [SLE] mind if I vomit? | | | > Yo, Keith - | > | > On behalf of the segment of the Canadian populace with IQ's a tad
| > than our shoe sizes, i'd like to join you in giving "Mr.Guelph" a | > full-out raspberry! Good gods, you'd think he worked for Redmond... | > <rant on> | > This kind of crap annoys me utterly. First off, over 1/2 of the | > usability factors this jackass mentions are the direct responsibility of | > system administrators. If these happen to be users, they should know
| > difference between their PCI bus and their ttyS0. If they don't, let | > them eat BeOS! 8) | > | > Secondly, most of those usability factors aren't even touched by M$. | > | > My partner uses Linux very well, and is by no means a geek. She's taken | > the time to learn to use it because, in brief, it beats the hell out of | > waiting for the BSoD to wipe out 3 hours' worth of work. I'm sure a | > number of us have SO's who have made, or are making the transition. | > The results are worth the time and effort invested. | > | > Marketability? To whom? I have a friend who's looking for a server | > package that doesn't require her to mortgage her house! Apache sells | > itself, and for free. Same with a number of other packages. | > | > The problem, if there be any, is documentation. This - and this alone - | > is where Linux fails. | > | | I haven't read the rest of this thread, but I would have to disagree with | you somewhat on Linux having no documents. At http://www.linuxdoc.org there | is a ton of howto's, FAQ and misc documents avaiable for free and widely | avaible to anyone. Also most programs will come with a README and INSTALL | file, ussually documenting what the program does, how to install it, and how | to use it. The man pages avaiable for Linux is also a decent amount, %90 of | the programs avaiable for Linux have supporting man pages. | | A site from this most distrubation maintain their own documents for
| current offerings. SuSE Linux for example has a couple FAQ and a support | database and hardware database avaiable to anyone (even if you don't use | their distro) for free. Red Hat and most of the other bigger distrubation | maintain large amounts of information mostly pretaining to their specif | distro but also Linux in general. | | Also if you goto http://www.amazon.com or http://bn.com (Barnes & Noble) and | type the word "Linux" into there search box there is a ton of printed manual | avaiable not only for Linux, but allot of the major supporting programs | (Gimp, Samba, Apache, Perl, etc.) | | IMHO I think the amount and quality of documentation avaiable for Linux, i s | one of Linux's stronger points. If there isn't documentation for a certain | aspect, fearture or bug in Linux or the Supporting program avaiable for | Linux, I think community support makes up for this. There is a ton of high | quality newsgroups, forums, mailing lists, chat rooms avaiable for free | online that anyone can take advance of if there is a lack for document. | Most are archived and anyone can browser or search these archives for
| information they are looking for. | | Ever tried to find a decent book dealing with IRIX? Ever looked for free | online documents and community support for MVS? | | I would be willing to bet Linux is more documented then any other Unix out | there. I would even take the bet that Linux has more documentation then | MacOS and BeOS have combined. I also won't be surpised if Linux has more | avaiable documents (both online and print) than Microsofts WindowsXX. | | Linux is on the bleeding edge of software development and is moving at an | very fast pace on a daily basics, but surpising the documents have been able | to keep up with the fast paced envoriment. | | I personally have be able to find more documents avaiable for Linux then any | other operating system I have ever or currently use. | | It should be noted that this is coming from a users and system admin
| of view and not a programers point of view. I can only comment on using and | admin the system and can not comment on how well the Linux "interns" and | documented from a programmers point of view. How the internal kernel is | documented for example; I can not comment on this. On a side note
higher the their the point though,
| Perl is really well documented. | | Jack | | | > | > Thanks for bringing it to our attention - nice to know what we're up | > against! | > | > Alpha | > | > -- | > To unsubscribe send e-mail to suse-linux-e-unsubscribe@suse.com | > For additional commands send e-mail to suse-linux-e-help@suse.com | > Also check the FAQ at http://www.suse.com/Support/Doku/FAQ/ | > | > | |
-- To unsubscribe send e-mail to suse-linux-e-unsubscribe@suse.com For additional commands send e-mail to suse-linux-e-help@suse.com Also check the FAQ at http://www.suse.com/Support/Doku/FAQ/