Date: 19 Feb 2002 01:47:08 +0100 From: Wouter Van Hemel <wouter@pair.com> To: Michael Lucas <mwlucas@blackhelicopters.org> Cc: Jay Edwards <jayed@jayed.com>, Tom Rhodes <darklogik@pittgoth.com>, bmah@FreeBSD.ORG, freebsd-doc@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: BSDCon Doc BoF Notes Message-ID: <1014079629.222.27.camel@cocaine> In-Reply-To: <20020218191647.A11924@blackhelicopters.org> References: <200202182315.g1INFpc93221@bmah.dyndns.org> <3C719161.5090803@pittgoth.com> <20020219050357.GN42451@jayed.com> <20020218191647.A11924@blackhelicopters.org>
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On Tue, 2002-02-19 at 01:16, Michael Lucas wrote: > Well, when you print it out, the existing Handbook is about 700 pages. > This is a bit hefty for a book on "general systems administration." > If it wasn't going to grow any more, we wouldn't worry. > > The Handbook does grow, however. Do we want the 3rd print edition to > be 1200 pages? Probably not. Although this is a volunteer project, > we do need to consider the needs of our corporate sponsors. FreeBSD > Mall put a lot of work into the Handbook's dead tree edition, and > dumps that money right back into FreeBSD. IMHO, this makes their > desires at least worth considering. > > The two major proposals were: > > a) chop the Handbook in half. > > b) chop the Handbook into several smaller manuals: the Installation > Handbook, the Networking Handbook, etc. > > After some pondering, I like option b. The apparent "difficulty of > entry" for new -doc committers would be reduced. Smaller books would > be easier to handle and edit. > But how do people use the data? If I have to look for something, I take the biggest book(s) on the subject, search the index, the contents-list, maybe read a bit back and forth... and in many cases that solves my problem. If I have many tiny textfiles or paper-books scattered around the place (and you'll see, you'll not be able to find exactly the part you need), it's less clear and way more confusing. Having a few solid references gives you something to refer people to, you can give them something heavy but trustworthy, something they can depend on, instead of sending them out in the woods. > Right now, you can tell that people tried to work on the grammar in > the Handbook. Along about Chapter 10 or 11, they gave up. It's just > too big for a volunteer effort. While smaller books would contain no > less data, they would be easier for volunteers to manage. > > Of course, other suggestions are welcome. This bikeshed is going to > be around a while, I'm afraid. > I already got my hammer ready... > ==ml > > > On Mon, Feb 18, 2002 at 11:03:57PM -0600, Jay Edwards wrote: > > Tom Rhodes(darklogik@pittgoth.com)@2002.02.18 18:42:25 +0000: > > > Can I suggest, the division of the hanbook. I can see where the > > > handbook can be divided between home user and like corp user. Mainly > > > the reasons for this is most home users may not need to know things like > > > apache configuration, or sendmail configuration. Just use the ISP's > > > mail server for email. > > > > I'd like to point out that, at this time, 99.999% of all FreeBSD home > > users are as technically competent as any FreeBSD corporate user. The > > person who uses FreeBSD at home is not likely to have any serious > > conceptual problems with apache or sendmail config file. > > Uhhuh, I don't think many people start with FreeBSD without having at least a bit interest in those basic things - even if it'd be just for a 'simple' desktop system (and if not - it's easy to skip). The day hurdes of MS-users make the switch, I think the whole book has to be rewritten in aol-style... or better, enter handbook-for-dummies... ;) I have my doubts about a book being able to be interesting for technical-savvy readers and complete newbies in the same time. That'd have to be a 1200-page book indeed... > > I don't see FreeBSD migrating into the population of "I don't understand > > apache.conf" anytime soon. (And I think that the number of people who > > thoroughly understand sendmail.cf is so small that it's not worth > > targeting them). > > > > Right now, I think that anyone who is going to use FreeBSD at home is > > capable of ignoring anything in the Handbook that doesn't apply to them. > > If at some point at the future our target audience changes, splitting up > > the handbook might make some sense, but I don't think that time is now. > > > > Jay > > > > To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org > > with "unsubscribe freebsd-doc" in the body of the message > > -- > Michael Lucas mwlucas@FreeBSD.org, mwlucas@BlackHelicopters.org > my FreeBSD column: http://www.oreillynet.com/pub/q/Big_Scary_Daemons > > http://www.blackhelicopters.org/~mwlucas/ > > To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org > with "unsubscribe freebsd-doc" in the body of the message To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-doc" in the body of the message
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