From owner-freebsd-doc Thu May 23 15:32:40 1996 Return-Path: owner-doc Received: (from root@localhost) by freefall.freebsd.org (8.7.3/8.7.3) id PAA28198 for doc-outgoing; Thu, 23 May 1996 15:32:40 -0700 (PDT) Received: from palmer.demon.co.uk (palmer.demon.co.uk [158.152.50.150]) by freefall.freebsd.org (8.7.3/8.7.3) with ESMTP id PAA28186 for ; Thu, 23 May 1996 15:32:32 -0700 (PDT) Received: from palmer.demon.co.uk (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by palmer.demon.co.uk (sendmail/PALMER-1) with ESMTP id XAA25059; Thu, 23 May 1996 23:11:49 +0100 (BST) To: Sean Kelly cc: jrclark@felix.iupui.edu, doc@FreeBSD.ORG From: "Gary Palmer" Subject: Re: FAQ Contribution In-reply-to: Your message of "Thu, 23 May 1996 11:33:21 MDT." <9605231733.AA26497@fslg8.fsl.noaa.gov> Date: Thu, 23 May 1996 23:11:48 +0100 Message-ID: <25057.832889508@palmer.demon.co.uk> Sender: owner-doc@FreeBSD.ORG X-Loop: FreeBSD.org Precedence: bulk Sean Kelly wrote in message ID <9605231733.AA26497@fslg8.fsl.noaa.gov>: > John> Doing this allowed me to see some serious holes in your > John> documentation. Probably among the worst is the total lack > John> of coherent directions for using the "ports" collection. > I'm afraid I have to be critical as well here. With utmost resepect > to Misters Palmer and Hubbard, the ports section could certainly use > some work to make it more tutorial and less meandering. It reads like > a FAQ and not at all like the tone I think we need in a handbook. Perhaps something got dropped from my original once it got stuck into the handbook, but that document was written in the days around the 2.0R! Back when there WERE no FAQ's for the Ports collection, so I had to guess where problems may arise. And no-one to date has taken on the maintainence of it ... it still (if I remember) has the not about the move from md5sum to checksum which is kinda outdated now. It wa a nasty piece of doc work (and I'm the first to admit it) but it was the only thing that anyone has written that even comes close to addressing this subject, and hence it stayed (I was the ``unofficial'' ports-meister before Satoshi came along, and I've moved on now, I don't even really track whats going on in ports anymore) > Perhaps someone could rewrite that section into a more tutorial-like > form? There was (and should still be) a request in that part of the doc asking (no, BEGGING) for someone to take it round the back with a double barrelled 12 bore shotgun and KILL that sucker, replacing it with something which is at least up to date. This is the first sign that I've seen that someone is going to do more than just complain about it... Gary -- Gary Palmer FreeBSD Core Team Member FreeBSD: Turning PC's into workstations. See http://www.FreeBSD.ORG/ for info