Date: Thu, 14 Jun 2001 20:48:26 +1000 From: jonathan michaels <jlm@caamora.com.au> To: "G. Adam Stanislav" <adam@whizkidtech.net> Cc: John Baldwin <jhb@FreeBSD.ORG>, "Bruce A. Mah" <bmah@FreeBSD.ORG>, Chern Lee <chern@meow.osd.bsdi.com>, freebsd-doc@FreeBSD.ORG, Eric Ogren <eogren@stanford.edu> Subject: Re: Style/Grammar/Writing Guidelines Message-ID: <20010614204826.31675@caamora.com.au> In-Reply-To: <3.0.6.32.20010614011937.00ec26c0@mail85.pair.com>; from G. Adam Stanislav on Thu, Jun 14, 2001 at 01:19:37AM -0500 References: <200106132316.f5DNG2365398@bmah-freebsd-0.cisco.com> <XFMail.010613161855.jhb@FreeBSD.org> <3.0.6.32.20010614011937.00ec26c0@mail85.pair.com>
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On Thu, Jun 14, 2001 at 01:19:37AM -0500, G. Adam Stanislav wrote: > At 16:18 13-06-2001 -0700, John Baldwin wrote: > >Do you want the Handbook at Barnes & Noble next to other high class books or > >not? :) I'm tired of having The Complete FreeBSD as the only FreeBSD book on > >the bookshelf. > > Do you want people to take it off that shelf and read it? I'm tired > of formal documentation I cannot understand. > > It is much easier to understand an informal text than a formal and > completely impersonal treatise. it is one thing to have bad 'formal' text as it is to have bad 'personal' text styles. but, it is much easier to read badly written "personal style" than even mildly poorly written 'formal style'. at the moment it is much better to have understandable, usable documentation ... while it would be very very good to have well written 'formal style' i sincerly doubt that i might come from an american controlled authoring system. i've been reading computer related text for some 30 years now and to this point have found that the british publishers have far easier to read product, it seems to matter not wither its formal style or not. lately o'rielly and assoc have picked up the baton and are starting to produce well written and usable books, wiley and sons have always been a 'buy unseen' source for me, for unix material. as with all things, the rules one espouses are only as valid as teh exceptions to those 'rules'. personally, i would prefer to see understandable and readible books with a very low load of topic technical errors style comes a distant third or lowwer in this totem. with regards and thanks jonathan -- ================================================================ Jonathan Michaels http://repair.oneday.soon PO Box 144, Rosebery, NSW 1445 suffering construction anxiety ============================================<jon@caamora.com.au> To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-doc" in the body of the messagehelp
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