[9fans] increase visibility of "Help" paper?

[9fans] increase visibility of "Help" paper?

[Dave Eckhardt]

For a while I've been thinking how great it would be
if there were "training videos" for sam and Acme--
over-the-shoulder shots of the screen, with a running
commentary summarizing the user input actions.  This
would be useful in terms of advertising, too, since
people might think "gee, how does the screen do the
right thing so fast?".

Anyway, last night while in the Plan 9 wiki avoiding
work, I stumbled on a 1st edition paper documenting
"Help", which preceded Acme, which is stored at
  http://www.fywss.com/plan9/plan9man/12help.ps.gz

It's great, pretty much an Acme training video in
paper form, and includes a dramatically-delivered
punch line.  I think it would help a lot of people
if this paper were included in the "User Interfaces"
part of the "official" paper list at
  http://cm.bell-labs.com/sys/doc/index.html
perhaps with a disclaimer along the lines of "for
further information on Acme's goals and use,
described in the context of an early prototype,
see "A Minimalist Global User Interface".

Dave Eckhardt

Re: [9fans] increase visibility of "Help" paper?

[Kenji Okamoto]

> For a while I've been thinking how great it would be
> if there were "training videos" for sam and Acme--

I wonder what's the problem of Rob's paper for acme and sam...

Kenji

Re: [9fans] increase visibility of "Help" paper?

[Dave Eckhardt]

> I wonder what's the problem of Rob's paper for acme and sam...

1. People are different.  Some people learn better by reading text,
others learn better from pictures.  Some things are easier to learn one
way than another--world-class chess players may learn from books, but
I think most world-class tennis players learn from coaches in person.
In my experience it's not uncommon for research groups to issue demo
videos.

2. Maybe I missed it, but I don't think I saw the function of the
ESCAPE key documented either of those papers.  I believe I stumbled
across it in the archives by accident:
  http://lists.cse.psu.edu/archives/9fans/2001-May/011280.html

3. To me, personally, the "Help" paper is just "more fun" than the
Acme paper.  What do you think?

Dave Eckhardt

Re: [9fans] increase visibility of "Help" paper?

[Rob Pike]

I think it's talking about a different enough system it would just be
confusing.  As historical background sure, but as a usage manual,
forget it; Help didn't even have the button 3-to-acquire stuff, which
is the fundamental idea in Acme.

-rob

On Mar 29, 2005 8:52 AM, Dave Eckhardt <davide+p9@cs.cmu.edu> wrote:
> > I wonder what's the problem of Rob's paper for acme and sam...
>
> 1. People are different.  Some people learn better by reading text,
> others learn better from pictures.  Some things are easier to learn one
> way than another--world-class chess players may learn from books, but
> I think most world-class tennis players learn from coaches in person.
> In my experience it's not uncommon for research groups to issue demo
> videos.
>
> 2. Maybe I missed it, but I don't think I saw the function of the
> ESCAPE key documented either of those papers.  I believe I stumbled
> across it in the archives by accident:
>   http://lists.cse.psu.edu/archives/9fans/2001-May/011280.html
>
> 3. To me, personally, the "Help" paper is just "more fun" than the
> Acme paper.  What do you think?
>
> Dave Eckhardt
>

Re: [9fans] increase visibility of "Help" paper?

[andrey mirtchovski]

> 2. Maybe I missed it, but I don't think I saw the function of the
> ESCAPE key documented either of those papers.  I believe I stumbled
> across it in the archives by accident:
>   http://lists.cse.psu.edu/archives/9fans/2001-May/011280.html


ESC is documented in the man page for rio.

that said,

> 3. To me, personally, the "Help" paper is just "more fun" than the
> Acme paper.  What do you think?

i agree.  "descent into limbo" and the original README.ms for Plan 9
are (were) useful for beginners when they were recent.  i have
promised to help bring README.ms up to date.  that'll happen sooner
rather than later.

Re: [9fans] increase visibility of "Help" paper?

[Rob Pike]

README was the one by Brian, right? He hardly used the system
and he writes a lot of off-the-mark stuff.  I deleted it from the distribution
because I thought it was more confusing than useful, trying to make
Plan 9 into Unix rather than explaining why it was different.

-rob

On Mar 29, 2005 9:53 AM, andrey mirtchovski <mirtchov@cpsc.ucalgary.ca> wrote:
>
> > 2. Maybe I missed it, but I don't think I saw the function of the
> > ESCAPE key documented either of those papers.  I believe I stumbled
> > across it in the archives by accident:
> >   http://lists.cse.psu.edu/archives/9fans/2001-May/011280.html
>
> ESC is documented in the man page for rio.
>
> that said,
>
> > 3. To me, personally, the "Help" paper is just "more fun" than the
> > Acme paper.  What do you think?
>
> i agree.  "descent into limbo" and the original README.ms for Plan 9
> are (were) useful for beginners when they were recent.  i have
> promised to help bring README.ms up to date.  that'll happen sooner
> rather than later.
>
>

Re: [9fans] increase visibility of "Help" paper?

[Rob Pike]

Let me put this another way: If you think the system needs more
documentation, the solution is not to resurrect old or misleading
documents.

-rob

Re: [9fans] increase visibility of "Help" paper?

[Kenji Okamoto]

> 3. To me, personally, the "Help" paper is just "more fun" than the
> Acme paper.  What do you think?

While I was out of town Rob already replied this by himself, so I have
little thing to say here.

However, in general, when someone writes a paper s/he must have
concentrated her/himself to that paper deeply.   It means usually a
reader can get only one of ten of the writer's thought.   Therefore, if
someone wants to add something to that paper s/he should have
discussion with the original author about it, and should get agreement
each other, I believe.   This is just from my experience of my professional
work.

In the "internet" world, I see so many things which break above rule...

Kenji