Date: Mon, 23 Mar 1998 17:03:38 +0000 From: nik@iii.co.uk To: =?iso-8859-1?Q?Dag-Erling_Coidan_Sm=F8rgrav?= <dag-erli@ifi.uio.no> Cc: stable@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: A day in the life of a hacker (was: Re: 'Code Freeze') Message-ID: <19980323170338.16252@iii.co.uk> In-Reply-To: =?iso-8859-1?Q?=3Cxzpiup58ko8=2Efsf=40gnipahellir=2Eifi=2Euio=2Eno=3E=3B?= =?iso-8859-1?Q?_from_Dag-Erling_Coidan_Sm=F8rgrav__on_Mon=2C_Mar_23=2C_1?= =?iso-8859-1?Q?998_at_04=3A57=3A11PM_%2B0100?= References: <11036.890349578@time.cdrom.com> <xzp4t0sq9f0.fsf@hrotti.ifi.uio.no> <19980323094611.21526@iii.co.uk> <xzpiup58ko8.fsf@gnipahellir.ifi.uio.no>
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Hi, <noflame> On Mon, Mar 23, 1998 at 04:57:11PM +0100, Dag-Erling Coidan Smørgrav wrote: > nik@iii.co.uk writes: > > On Sat, Mar 21, 1998 at 05:46:11PM +0100, Dag-Erling Coidan Smørgrav wrote: > > > [make world story] > > You haven't merged in changes that have been made to the /etc directory. > > This may bite you later. You also haven't updated the /dev directory, which > > may also bite you later. > > Oh, yeah, right, I forgot that I am a complete idiot, have no idea how > FreeBSD is designed and have never made world before. Gee, sorry, > Officer. I'll be more careful in the future. Sat on this side of the keyboard I have no idea of your expertise with FreeBSD. I also have no idea of the level of expertise of anyone else who reads your message and thinks "Oh, that sounds easy, I'll give it a try." And then mails -questions or -stable (or -current) when they have problems. That's why my reply was sent back to the mailing list and not to you (although you will probably have received a cc:). I've already had 2 e-mail messages today as a result of my reply to you from folks basically saying "Nice page, didn't realise there was such a lot to doing 'make world', but you make it pretty clear. I feel more confident about this now." > Nik, you are *not* the sole authority on 'make world'. I couldn't agree more. I am, however, one of very few people who's bothered to try and document the process (as I see it). > Other people > also have brains. Other people also have a long experience with > FreeBSD. Other people sometimes even read their cvsup logs and keep > track of what has changed since their last make world so they will > know what needs to be done. And others don't, and they read messages on the mailing lists that hand wave the process by just saying "You can re-make the world now", or "Now merge in the changes to /etc" without explaining what this actually means. That's my intended audience. Sorry that you caught it this time. > > <URL:http://www.nothing-going-on.demon.co.uk/FreeBSD/make-world/make-world.html>; > > > > is definitely worth a read (typos and all, I've just spotted a couple, rats). > > You forgot to enclose this in <SHAMELESS PLUG> ... </SHAMELESS PLUG>. Why? What if I'd used <URL:http://www.freebsd.org/handbook/handbook242.html>; instead? > Frankly, I find your 'make world' guide (yes, I did read it, at about > the time you first put it up) If you have the time I'd appreciate you taking another look. It's changed significantly in the past eight months or so. In particular, it talks about more versions of FreeBSD, and some actions that I'd previously suggested were a *must* (such as doing the build in single user mode) are now shown as being ommitable, if the reader is confident. > overconservative and overproblematizing, though it contains much useful > information. Strangely, I don't think you've ever contacted me about this before? I welcome comments and corrections about the tutorial, and as the list of contributors shows, many people have taken the time and trouble to do just that. But generalisations such as yours above don't help me. > Did it ever occur to you that it might actually scare people away from > 'make world' instead of teaching them how to do it? Not really. But then if 38 80x25 screenfulls of text scares someone then they (IMHO) shouldn't be trying to upgrade by recompiling their system, they'll almost certainly be more comfortable with sysinstall's 'Upgrade' option. FWIW, I'm (slowly) working on a way of tagging the information in the tutorial as being aimed at a specific class of user. This will (eventually) allow me to easily produce versions of the tutorial with differing amounts of 'background fluff' as appropriate. But I'm not there yet. Whatever. As I say, sorry you got caught by the 'make-world autoresponse' embedded in my finger tips, I'll try and be less trigger happy in the future. And if you can take the time to look at the latest version of the document, I'd appreciate any suggestions for improvements. N </noflame> <flame> Oh, I have to have 'flame' section huh? Um, er, "Your mother wears Army boots". Gosh, that was fairly pathetic. I think I'd better stick to trying to argue the merits of the documentation, rather than getting all hot and bothered by it. </flame> -- Work: nik@iii.co.uk | FreeBSD + Perl + Apache Rest: nik@nothing-going-on.demon.co.uk | Remind me again why we need Play: nik@freebsd.org | Microsoft? To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-stable" in the body of the message
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