> From: Dave Sill [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]]
>
> Brad Johnson <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>
> >However, qmail does suffer from the same issue as BSD traditionally
> >has, which is that everyone involved is too damned smart, so they
> >write in terse, dense and frighteningly useful language and get
> >annoyed when people have difficulty parsing the information.
>
> I worked hard to make "Life with qmail" newbie-friendly, and I try
> hard to be newbie-friendly on this list. If you have specific
> constructive suggestions on how I can improve either, please let me
> know.
>
I purposely didn't want the above to sound like a criticism; that's
why it was contained within <quibble> tags. It's meant to praise you
with faint damnation: "too damned smart" and "frighteningly useful"
is not meant to be an effective insult.
However, I don't think it's unreasonable to draw an analogy between
qmail and BSD; even though qmail came after sendmail and BSD before Linux,
the language used by qmailers to describe sendmail is heavily reminiscent
of the language used by BSDers to describe Linux; also, qmail shares
many basic goals with BSD (security,clean code,superiority). I think that
qmail is more like Linux in that qmail seems destined to replace sendmail
over time as the dominant MTA. All IMHO.
I think I was trying to say that reasonable people can be confused by
qmail, just because it's a very powerful and complex program, not because
it's poorly documented. There's no way to make building a mile-long bridge
simple and easy; there's no way to make building a robust, secure and
flexible
MTA simple and easy.
That said, I'd say that qmail and the qmail community comes as close as
possible to that goal. In other words, qmail is pretty damn newbie friendly,
even though it's an impossible task.
Suggestions: the qmail.org page should highlight "Life with qmail" and
the other generally useful documents. It's buried near the bottom of the
User-Contributed Documentation page, below broken links to Michael Samuel
and a bunch of specialty documentations.
I also sent a bunch of hopefully useful suggestions/tweaks for "Life" to
Dave.
