From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 X-Msuck: nntp://news.gmane.io/gmane.emacs.gnus.general/75417 Path: news.gmane.org!not-for-mail From: Tommy Kelly Newsgroups: gmane.emacs.gnus.general Subject: Re: Just shoot me now (was Re: What's wrong with this fancy split?) Date: Wed, 22 Dec 2010 13:12:52 -0600 Message-ID: References: <87tyi58y8i.fsf@topper.koldfront.dk> NNTP-Posting-Host: lo.gmane.org Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=utf-8 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit X-Trace: dough.gmane.org 1293045243 13648 80.91.229.12 (22 Dec 2010 19:14:03 GMT) X-Complaints-To: usenet@dough.gmane.org NNTP-Posting-Date: Wed, 22 Dec 2010 19:14:03 +0000 (UTC) To: ding@gnus.org Original-X-From: ding-owner+M23769@lists.math.uh.edu Wed Dec 22 20:13:52 2010 Return-path: Envelope-to: ding-account@gmane.org Original-Received: from util0.math.uh.edu ([129.7.128.18]) by lo.gmane.org with esmtp (Exim 4.69) (envelope-from ) id 1PVU8B-0001aF-M5 for ding-account@gmane.org; Wed, 22 Dec 2010 20:13:47 +0100 Original-Received: from localhost ([127.0.0.1] helo=lists.math.uh.edu) by util0.math.uh.edu with smtp (Exim 4.63) (envelope-from ) id 1PVU7n-0006wm-1q; Wed, 22 Dec 2010 13:13:23 -0600 Original-Received: from mx1.math.uh.edu ([129.7.128.32]) by util0.math.uh.edu with esmtps (TLSv1:AES256-SHA:256) (Exim 4.63) (envelope-from ) id 1PVU7l-0006wX-4Y for ding@lists.math.uh.edu; Wed, 22 Dec 2010 13:13:21 -0600 Original-Received: from quimby.gnus.org ([80.91.231.51]) by mx1.math.uh.edu with esmtp (Exim 4.72) (envelope-from ) id 1PVU7j-0005lh-AT for ding@lists.math.uh.edu; Wed, 22 Dec 2010 13:13:20 -0600 Original-Received: from lo.gmane.org ([80.91.229.12]) by quimby.gnus.org with esmtp (Exim 4.72) (envelope-from ) id 1PVU7i-00081y-KM for ding@gnus.org; Wed, 22 Dec 2010 20:13:18 +0100 Original-Received: from list by lo.gmane.org with local (Exim 4.69) (envelope-from ) id 1PVU7e-0001Il-0y for ding@gnus.org; Wed, 22 Dec 2010 20:13:14 +0100 Original-Received: from cpe-70-112-150-104.austin.res.rr.com ([70.112.150.104]) by main.gmane.org with esmtp (Gmexim 0.1 (Debian)) id 1AlnuQ-0007hv-00 for ; Wed, 22 Dec 2010 20:13:14 +0100 Original-Received: from tommy.kelly by cpe-70-112-150-104.austin.res.rr.com with local (Gmexim 0.1 (Debian)) id 1AlnuQ-0007hv-00 for ; Wed, 22 Dec 2010 20:13:14 +0100 X-Injected-Via-Gmane: http://gmane.org/ Original-Lines: 49 Original-X-Complaints-To: usenet@dough.gmane.org X-Gmane-NNTP-Posting-Host: cpe-70-112-150-104.austin.res.rr.com User-Agent: Gnus/5.110011 (No Gnus v0.11) Emacs/23.2 (darwin) Cancel-Lock: sha1:NVs1R0kOxoFygk+KVfW7iH2YxLY= X-Spam-Score: -1.9 (-) List-ID: Precedence: bulk Xref: news.gmane.org gmane.emacs.gnus.general:75417 Archived-At: asjo@koldfront.dk (Adam Sjøgren) writes: > On Wed, 22 Dec 2010 06:53:07 -0600, Tommy wrote: > >> So where does that leave us? > > It is much easier for a developer deep in the code to receive a > documentation patch... Totally understand. > What I am trying to say is that I think you will find much less argument > if you dig out git and start supplying your suggestions for improvements > as patches to the manual. Absolutely agree. > It is quite natural to say "Meh, but it isn't wrong" if you're asking > someone to do... the horror... work! Yep. So just to be clear. I've already begun (and posted to this group) the beginnings of a rewrite of the bit in question, and I plan to take that to completion (if I don't shoot myself in the head in the process :-) ). Lars has pointed me at the git patch process and I'm aware of the need for FSF copyright assignment. So my questions at the moment are definitely not veiled demands for someone to fix things for me. Rather they are mostly requests for information to allow *me* to do the fixing. > Or the user is trying to achieve to many things at once. There is a > learning curve, even if you aren't thick ;-) It's a good observation. In fact, one of the things that tells me that no matter what else is an issue, the documentation itself could be improved, is the extent to which simply to do one thing the newbie needs to dive into so many other things. Of course some pre-requisite knowledge really is pre-requisite. You can't do physics without calculus. But sometimes the lower levels are poking through needlessly. You *don't* need to understand Goedel's Incompleteness Theorem to do physics, even though it is profoundly important. Regardless, in many cases I think a bit of extra wordiness in the docs will allow the new user to get moving faster, thereby helping their learning when the time comes for them to dive into the guts and, conversely, lowering the question burden on the experts. Reuse an' all that :-) Tommy