I'm interested in thoughts and opinions on the practical utility of the
official Cisco IOS Configuration Guides and Command References available in
print, on CCO, and on the documentation CD-ROMs that ship with Cisco
products. There have been a number of allusions on and off this list to the
importance (or even necessity) of studying the official docs if "you're
serious about CCIE preparation." I even recall seeing some advice given by
someone that one should read the entire set of configuration guides and
command references before attempting the lab exam.
How useful do you all find the IOS documentation, both with respect to CCIE
study, and in general?
Have you succeeded in using it to learn to configure services you were
previously unfamiliar with, or is it just useful as a reference once you
already mainly know what you're doing? Is it even useful as a reference?
My own thoughts:
I ask because I find the IOS documentation hard to digest at best, and
actively confusing at worst. I use it frequently, but almost exclusively as
a reference to look up command options and syntax details. Even then, half
the time I find that there either isn't enough detail in the manual to
answer the question I have, or there's so much detail that the information
I'm looking for is buried in an avalanche of optional parameters and
unrelated features. The idea of resorting to the IOS documentation to, say,
learn how to set up async and ISDN interfaces using a combination of static
and dynamic addressing to support user dialin and backup/DDR functions on an
access server makes my blood run cold. It could be done - eventually - but
it would require piecing the information together from eight different
chapters, one of which would provide 200 pages of information just on PPP,
another of which would provide 150 pages of information on ISDN signaling,
and so on.
I just can't imagine the official documentation as the preferred means to
learn to do something new. Should you be familiar with the structure and
contents? Of course. It's still the last word when it comes to resolving
ambiguities or finding information on that one option you knew was there but
couldn't remember the keyword for. Is it time well-spent to sit there and
study these manuals as an attempt to increase your knowledge and
proficiency? Not in my experience. That's not to say you won't learn
anything by doing it - just that there are better ways to use your time.
Comments encouraged! Maybe some of you have actually devised a way to
triage the documentation and learn a lot from it despite the way it's
organized. If so, I'd love to hear your strategies.
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