From owner-freebsd-hackers Sat May 3 18:08:13 1997 Return-Path: Received: (from root@localhost) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.5/8.8.5) id SAA28246 for hackers-outgoing; Sat, 3 May 1997 18:08:13 -0700 (PDT) Received: from panda.hilink.com.au (panda.hilink.com.au [203.2.144.5]) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.5/8.8.5) with ESMTP id SAA28237 for ; Sat, 3 May 1997 18:08:09 -0700 (PDT) Received: (from danny@localhost) by panda.hilink.com.au (8.8.5/8.7.3) id LAA10807; Sun, 4 May 1997 11:09:12 +1000 (EST) Date: Sun, 4 May 1997 11:09:10 +1000 (EST) From: "Daniel O'Callaghan" To: Chris Coleman cc: hackers@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: The Learn.pl facility - Live Comments! In-Reply-To: Message-ID: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Sender: owner-hackers@FreeBSD.ORG X-Loop: FreeBSD.org Precedence: bulk On Sat, 3 May 1997, Chris Coleman wrote: > Is this the list that I try and find help on getting a new program > committed to the current source code? Or do i need a different list? Hackers is the closest, really. You can try picking some committers you thing might be friendly, and asking them specifically to review what you have done. That's how I got my first changes into the system a year or so ago. learn.pl certainly looks like a good starting point. You left /usr/bin/ee out of the editors list. One thing that struck me was that I expected to 'learn' 'things', not just how to find the man pages, but I guess this is a prototype. Maybe a config section would be good, rather than hard coding program names into if(){}elsif(){} statments. Something like: section mailprogs "Read your e-mail" path /usr/bin /usr/local/bin /usr/X11R6/bin progs pine elm mutt mh Mail mail xprogs xmh section editors "Editing files" path /usr/bin /usr/local/bin /usr/X11R6/bin progs ee pico emacs jove elvis vi ex xprogs xemacs xedit Once you have these basics, you can also say 'learn mail' and have 'learn' print out a list of all the available mail progs, and a description of each, so the user can make a more informed choice. As for committing, I think this is a great idea, and with a bit more polish should become a "recommended package" for anyone who is setting up a system for newbie users. I think the more senior people on the committers round table would prefer to see this facility settle down before integrating it into the system. Cheers, Danny