Re: [9fans] Adding a new user on 9-Front

[erik quanstrom <quanstro@quanstro.net>]

On Mon Dec 23 15:04:54 EST 2013, blake@mcbride.name wrote:

> On Mon, Dec 23, 2013 at 12:28 PM, Kurt H Maier <khm@sciops.net> wrote:
> > Or perhaps we use the documentation as a way to weed out people who cannot
> > reason.
>
> Documentation is always clear to people who already know the material but
> use the documentation as a reminder.  It is difficult for a newbie to
> differentiate out-of-date material, branch specific material, and valid
> documentation.  I am providing feedback from a newbie's perspective.  You
> can either take advantage of some of the feedback to make it easier for a
> newbie (that cannot reason) thus increasing the number of users, or you can
> insult them until they leave.  I apologize for not being as smart as you.

i see no need for an exclusive community.

i was attracted to plan 9 by simplicity; the concepts were easy to
understand.  if you can explain how to get to wall-mart, you can
explain why plan 9 is interesting.

plan 9 4th ed had really excellent documentation.  we haven't done
as good a job keeping up as we could have, and there is room for
improvement.  i am not sure if this particular example follows them,
but man(6) should explain some of the typograpic conventions.
there may be better references, but they don't come to mind.

happy hacking season.

- erik