Re[2]: [newbie] Rant: The man pages
Hello Anne, Tuesday, September 23, 2003, 2:43:16 PM, you wrote: It may be in the docs, but not in a form that is readily accessible by a simple search. AW It's an interesting proposition, but not an overnight job, I think g True. How does one get a group together to develop it? -- rikonamailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Want to buy your Pack or Services from MandrakeSoft? Go to http://www.mandrakestore.com
Re[2]: [newbie] Rant: The man pages
Hello Anne, Monday, September 22, 2003, 12:31:31 AM, you wrote: AAW Don't want to rain on your parade, rikona, but 'natural language' AW searches never seemed to give me answers either. It is VERY likely that your natural language search was nothing at all like what I am proposing. Just because you can type in a regular sentence into a search engine means almost nothing. It may only remove the 'noise' words and look for others, perhaps even with an 'and' between them. Yech. For starters, I am talking about a help system that uses a thesaurus to translate between the 'natural language' words and the 'jargon' used in the docs. The system also understands 'help' ideas such as 'how do I' etc. Other ideas are also used, such as clustering. It is not just a simple search. Also note that almost all inquiries here need more info in addition to the original question. The system must be interactive to be really useful. After the first request, the system then makes a request for more info, just as happens on this list. Based on this improved 'understanding' of the problem, solutions are then offered. If need be, these can be further refined. AW Back again, I think, to the fact that no search can give an answer AW that isn't in the docs, It may be in the docs, but not in a form that is readily accessible by a simple search. AW the docs are written by those who didn't need to ask True. :-) -- rikonamailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Want to buy your Pack or Services from MandrakeSoft? Go to http://www.mandrakestore.com
Re[2]: [newbie] Rant: The man pages
Hello yankl, Monday, September 22, 2003, 5:51:31 PM, you wrote: y I think my point was not taken properly. I am sorry it probably my y English (it not even my second language more like fourth). You are doing very well, then. y My point was that people should make a research first and then try to ask y questions. Agreed this is a good idea. y By researching you find new tools and new way to do it. Perhaps. If it an overloaded worker with little time available, it is not likely that that person will spend much time exploring. They need an answer NOW. A tool should not need too much work to use. y Remember to get correct answer you must ask correct question. This is the newbie problem - they do NOT know always the right question. y And this mean techno talk, jargon, terminology and simple y understanding of what you are trying to do. If the newbie MUST have this even to get a start, it is doomed to failure. What is needed is a way to get help without ALREADY knowing the jargon. -- rikonamailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Want to buy your Pack or Services from MandrakeSoft? Go to http://www.mandrakestore.com
Re[2]: [newbie] Rant: The man pages
Hello yankl, Monday, September 22, 2003, 7:40:28 PM, you wrote: y The *NIX OS is designed for responsible people, are we agree on y this? One can be VERY responsible and know nothing about the jargon. Many want it as TOOL, not as a hobby/living/etc. The best tools work well, and are very easy to use - these are the ones that people will choose. y Users who like to run easy OS and like to switch to *NIX will force y us to come to the same situation where by default we will try to y make a user life as easy as it can be. Sound like a great idea to me, as long as it is NOT done the way M$ does it. -- rikonamailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Want to buy your Pack or Services from MandrakeSoft? Go to http://www.mandrakestore.com
Re[2]: [newbie] Rant: The man pages
Hello John, Monday, September 22, 2003, 11:43:33 PM, you wrote: JW In the early NIX world where the folks hacking away on the system JW were C programmers talking to C programmers It is more like: Cpgmrs tlk w cp hkg awy @ t sym. I remember a magazine that used to publish a puzzle each month. It was a bit of C code, and the reader was supposed to figure out what it did. The winner was the person who came closest, because it sometimes happened that nobody get it exactly right. So much for the inherent clarity of Unix. :-) JW It's still dense, it says very little that is of any help to a JW newbie and is likely to lead to more confusion that it is to a JW solution. Agreed. JW This is how adults learn. An excellent approach. -- rikonamailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Want to buy your Pack or Services from MandrakeSoft? Go to http://www.mandrakestore.com
Re[2]: [newbie] Rant: The man pages
Hello Anne, Tuesday, September 23, 2003, 1:24:19 AM, you wrote: AW Any offers? How about a good 'help system'? I'd be willing to contribute. AW It's a challenge, really g Yes, it will certainly be a challenge. :-) How about a help-system list, maybe? -- rikonamailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Want to buy your Pack or Services from MandrakeSoft? Go to http://www.mandrakestore.com
Re[2]: [newbie] Rant: The man pages
Hello Aron, Tuesday, September 23, 2003, 3:25:39 AM, you wrote: AS RTFM OK but the real newbie is having trouble finding TFM Gee - I thought I was the only one with that problem. :-) -- rikonamailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Want to buy your Pack or Services from MandrakeSoft? Go to http://www.mandrakestore.com
Re: Re[2]: [newbie] Rant: The man pages
On Tue, 2003-09-23 at 13:49, rikona wrote: Hello Aron, Tuesday, September 23, 2003, 3:25:39 AM, you wrote: AS RTFM OK but the real newbie is having trouble finding TFM Gee - I thought I was the only one with that problem. :-) Took me six months to figure out that when a browser opened that you could backstep a littlebit and get to the Documentation ;-0 Want to buy your Pack or Services from MandrakeSoft? Go to http://www.mandrakestore.com
Re: Re[2]: [newbie] Rant: The man pages
On Sunday 21 Sep 2003 9:03 pm, rikona wrote: Hello Richard, Sunday, September 21, 2003, 3:03:45 AM, you wrote: RU apropos doesn't work because the man pages call it y. Yep - another part of the problem. M$ help suffers from the same problem, although their overall integration of help is a step in the right direction. Newbies can describe the question in 'natural language', which is unfortunately not the language used in the OS data base. The first OS that uses a thesaurus well will really be a winner. I'm hoping that will be Mandrake. How can we do that? MS help suffers from contextual help disease: tech writers are given a list of every menu entry and dialog and think that by documenting all of these their job is done. You end up with the man problem again; no howto. -- Richard Urwin Want to buy your Pack or Services from MandrakeSoft? Go to http://www.mandrakestore.com
Re: Re[2]: [newbie] Rant: The man pages
On Sun, 2003-09-21 at 22:57, rikona wrote: Hello yankl, Sunday, September 21, 2003, 5:36:27 PM, you wrote: y hence the end of my e-mail man -k. Have any one done their home y work? Yes, but it was not very helpful, as I mentioned. y By typing #man -k lilo one can see what command it relates too. Aha - now we can actually see the un-natural language needed to get the answer. The page number is 'lilo', and we still have to keep the -k. :-) y Unless we like to have m$users we need to start using all tools y provided by OS. There are a ton of tools, that is not the problem. The problem is being able to find the right answer in this sea of tools. y In my opinion the order of trying to solve something in the *nix y should be as following: y 1. HOWTO (tldp.org or build in) Often a good place to start, but it is still too 'command' oriented, rather than 'problem' oriented. y 2. man page y 3. google.com y 4. newbie list I like 4, 3, and then 2 best. But then I'm a newbie. :-) I can fully understand why someone who already knows it would prefer the other order. y If one will not try to figure out staff by him/herself we will have to switch y to m$ like OS where it is one way to do it and its full of holes because it y is more important to make it ease then to make it safe. Being safe and being easy to use, at least with respect to documentation, are unrelated. Better, problem-oriented documentation for linux might even make it easier to use than M$, especially if it is good-thesaurus, natural language based. Note that M$ is investing VERY heavily in people who do NL work. Hint, hint. If you want Mandrake to take off, this will be a key - there are just not enough geeks. :-))) Of course, there's the crowd that does NOT want it to take off - but that's another topic. y teach man how to resource and he will nether go back to m$. If the resources are too hard to use, he will go back to M$ anyway. No amount of RTFM put-downs will change that - indeed, it will just accelerate it. I think that the MAN pages are a holdover from the unix days and should be rewritten possibly with examples Want to buy your Pack or Services from MandrakeSoft? Go to http://www.mandrakestore.com
Re: Re[2]: [newbie] Rant: The man pages
On Mon, 2003-09-22 at 03:47, Aron Smith wrote: On Sun, 2003-09-21 at 22:57, rikona wrote: Hello yankl, Sunday, September 21, 2003, 5:36:27 PM, you wrote: y hence the end of my e-mail man -k. Have any one done their home y work? Yes, but it was not very helpful, as I mentioned. y By typing #man -k lilo one can see what command it relates too. Aha - now we can actually see the un-natural language needed to get the answer. The page number is 'lilo', and we still have to keep the -k. :-) y Unless we like to have m$users we need to start using all tools y provided by OS. There are a ton of tools, that is not the problem. The problem is being able to find the right answer in this sea of tools. y In my opinion the order of trying to solve something in the *nix y should be as following: y 1. HOWTO (tldp.org or build in) Often a good place to start, but it is still too 'command' oriented, rather than 'problem' oriented. y 2. man page y 3. google.com y 4. newbie list I like 4, 3, and then 2 best. But then I'm a newbie. :-) I can fully understand why someone who already knows it would prefer the other order. y If one will not try to figure out staff by him/herself we will have to switch y to m$ like OS where it is one way to do it and its full of holes because it y is more important to make it ease then to make it safe. Being safe and being easy to use, at least with respect to documentation, are unrelated. Better, problem-oriented documentation for linux might even make it easier to use than M$, especially if it is good-thesaurus, natural language based. Note that M$ is investing VERY heavily in people who do NL work. Hint, hint. If you want Mandrake to take off, this will be a key - there are just not enough geeks. :-))) Of course, there's the crowd that does NOT want it to take off - but that's another topic. y teach man how to resource and he will nether go back to m$. If the resources are too hard to use, he will go back to M$ anyway. No amount of RTFM put-downs will change that - indeed, it will just accelerate it. I think that the MAN pages are a holdover from the unix days and should be rewritten possibly with examples I think the newbie twiki should/could and will be the manpages, rewritten so that a simpler search engine (htdig?,, google) and simpler computer users can understand what is being said. Want to buy your Pack or Services from MandrakeSoft? Go to http://www.mandrakestore.com
Re[2]: [newbie] Rant: The man pages
Hello Richard, Sunday, September 21, 2003, 3:03:45 AM, you wrote: RU On Sunday 21 Sep 2003 8:49 am, Anne Wilson wrote: Yank, man pages are great once you have a bit of experience under the belt. For a true newbie, many ar totally inpenetrable. RU Agreed, but I'm not a newbie and IME, man pages are almost useless RU for how do I do x. how do I do x? is probably the most common newbie question, yet is the one least likely to get answered by the available tools. RU apropos doesn't work because the man pages call it y. Yep - another part of the problem. M$ help suffers from the same problem, although their overall integration of help is a step in the right direction. Newbies can describe the question in 'natural language', which is unfortunately not the language used in the OS data base. The first OS that uses a thesaurus well will really be a winner. I'm hoping that will be Mandrake. How can we do that? -- rikonamailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Want to buy your Pack or Services from MandrakeSoft? Go to http://www.mandrakestore.com
