[ On Tuesday, September 12, 2000 at 15:34:02 (-0700), Craig Saunders wrote: ]
> Subject: Re: What is Cederqvist?
>
> I find this all very amusing because when I suggested that
> we should have an FAQ (which would include answers to
> questions like this) I was told by the loud, obnoxious
> old-timers that we don't need an FAQ - All the answers
> are in The Cederqvist.
Well this old timer really thinks it very very very bad form to refer to
something like this by the disembodied name of its creator (and I hope
I've never ever used that phrase in any way!). Stupid contractions like
this are what create meaningless jargon in the first place. If people
want to give credit to Per Cederqvist (credit which he very much
deserves I might add!), they should refer to the manual as ``Per
Cederqvist's CVS Manual''.
As for an FAQ, well when Per Cederqvist wrote the first version of the
current CVS manual it was to replace the old FAQ which had become
totally and absolutely unwieldy. It was impossible to use yet people
were trying to use it in lieu of a proper manual.
Indeed a FAQ in the old form should never be necessary in this context.
If the documentation for a software package does not answer all
questions, frequent and infrequent, in a way that's easy to find and
understand then the solution is most definitely not to create a FAQ,
especially not in th modern way such FAQs are written from scratch by
one person as a unique new document on their own.
However a FAQ, of course in the form of a true FAQ which answers
questions outside the scope of the manual, of which there was once a
half decent one posted monthly to the list, is a different story....
Often though such FAQs are far more effort than they're worth in this
day of web pages and search engines.
--
Greg A. Woods
+1 416 218-0098 VE3TCP <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> <robohack!woods>
Planix, Inc. <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>; Secrets of the Weird <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
