From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Message-ID: <486912B1.40707@mtu.edu> Date: Mon, 30 Jun 2008 13:06:57 -0400 From: "Steven D. Vormwald" User-Agent: Thunderbird 2.0.0.14 (X11/20080501) MIME-Version: 1.0 To: Fans of the OS Plan 9 from Bell Labs <9fans@9fans.net> References: <248e1318b69931a26818a9a041edd207@quanstro.net> In-Reply-To: <248e1318b69931a26818a9a041edd207@quanstro.net> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Subject: Re: [9fans] sad commentary Topicbox-Message-UUID: ce22edae-ead3-11e9-9d60-3106f5b1d025 erik quanstrom wrote: >> is not available under Plan 9. (Or is it?) As there is no simple >> introduction to Plan 9 new users will just go the easy way and get >> Windows or Linux. > > lack of an introduction is not the problem. not being unix > is the problem. > Looking too much like UNIX while acting differently is part of the problem. However, the bigger part is that the existing documentation can be a bit daunting for someone who is new to Plan 9, and still has only a vague notion of how the system works. Like the UNIX man pages, the documentation is very detailed, and great for a reference. But many new users need a bit of hand-holding, of the "Trust me, you want to run this command. You'll learn why/how later, but for now, just RUN THIS COMMAND." sort. At least until the 'new user' anxiety dies down a bit, and the return of rational thought allows one to digest the more extensive documentation. Besides, isn't not being UNIX one of the prominent features of Plan 9? Steven Vormwald PS: John, thanks for the link to the RIT Intro paper (in another message in this thread). It helped a lot.