From: dick <dick.r.chiang@gmail.com>
To: ding@gnus.org
Subject: Re: Proposed new introductory section to the Gnus manual
Date: Tue, 20 Aug 2019 07:37:26 -0400 [thread overview]
Message-ID: <871rxggj9l.fsf@gmail.com> (raw)
In-Reply-To: <87y2zojwbz.fsf@ericabrahamsen.net>
"Lipstick on a pig" comes to mind when I think of patching documentation.
If a system is sufficiently baroque that it's difficult to write concise
documentation, then the battle was already lost (the shining counterpoint is
K&R in which Kernighan famously writes "C is not a big language and ... is not
well served by a big book").
Certainly Gnus's intro documentation is (much) longer than it needs to be.
Coders who also write documentation have an overriding tendency to explicate
all that they know rather than condense to what the user cares to know
(which is "how can i get on with my life?").
I believe Gnus can be made less user-hostile so that lengthy and "jocular"
documentation is unnecessary -- most Gmail and Thunderbird users never have to
read consult docs. I've been working steadily to write a "spacemacs for Gnus"
(even though I dislike spacemacs).
next prev parent reply other threads:[~2019-08-20 11:37 UTC|newest]
Thread overview: 43+ messages / expand[flat|nested] mbox.gz Atom feed top
2019-08-18 23:26 Eric Abrahamsen
2019-08-19 0:34 ` dick.r.chiang
2019-08-19 1:06 ` Eric Abrahamsen
2019-08-19 2:46 ` Bob Newell
2019-08-19 7:01 ` Eric S Fraga
2019-08-20 4:26 ` Eric Abrahamsen
2019-08-20 11:37 ` dick [this message]
2019-09-09 8:13 ` Eric Abrahamsen
2019-09-09 11:52 ` dick
2019-09-09 18:39 ` Bob Newell
2019-09-09 19:48 ` dick
2019-09-10 2:36 ` Eric Abrahamsen
2019-09-10 20:21 ` dick
2019-09-10 23:50 ` Eric Abrahamsen
2019-09-12 19:19 ` Michael
2019-09-13 9:19 ` Eric Abrahamsen
2019-09-13 15:08 ` Eric S Fraga
2019-09-13 16:54 ` Michael
2019-09-16 2:51 ` Eric Abrahamsen
2019-09-13 18:24 ` Bob Newell
2019-09-13 18:39 ` Change input method or smtp server depending on addressee (was: Proposed new introductory section to the Gnus manual) Jorge A. Alfaro-Murillo
2019-09-14 17:38 ` Change input method or smtp server depending on addressee Štěpán Němec
2019-09-16 18:26 ` Bob Newell
2019-09-16 8:52 ` Robert Pluim
2019-12-20 12:54 ` 황병희
2019-09-16 2:55 ` Proposed new introductory section to the Gnus manual Eric Abrahamsen
2019-09-16 18:34 ` Bob Newell
2019-09-10 20:39 ` Adam Sjøgren
2019-09-10 20:54 ` dick
2019-09-12 5:31 ` Steinar Bang
2019-09-07 19:50 ` Adam Sjøgren
2019-09-08 17:00 ` Bob Newell
2019-08-19 16:01 ` Adam Sjøgren
2019-08-19 18:04 ` Bob Newell
2019-08-19 18:09 ` Adam Sjøgren
2019-08-20 4:29 ` Eric Abrahamsen
2019-09-07 19:44 ` Adam Sjøgren
2019-08-19 16:16 ` Eric S Fraga
2019-08-20 7:08 ` Bjørn Mork
2019-08-20 9:51 ` Eric S Fraga
2019-08-20 10:32 ` Bjørn Mork
2019-08-20 10:55 ` Eric S Fraga
2019-08-19 17:55 ` Adam Sjøgren
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