Re: [gentoo-dev] making %95 of users happy

[Gaarde <gaarde@yahoo.com>]

On Fri, Apr 19, 2002 at 10:57:58AM -0700, Gaarde wrote:
> > DISCLAIMER:  I'm intentionally being rude... it helps convey my message.

Ah, how kind.
 
> Being so young, the documentation, the sence of community, the code (albeit
> in this case a 1.0 is quite nice.  Kudos guys!), everything about the 
Gentoo
> product is NOT AS MATURE AS MORE WIDELY DISTRIBUTED DISTRIBUTIONS!  What 
does
> 7.2 mean to you?  Or 8.1?  What does 1.1 mean to you?

Well, with people being intentionally rude, it seems like a nicely
developed and mature sense of community...
 
> I guess some people just jumped head first into Gentoo without knowing what
> they were getting into.  (The middle of a development cycle... that just
> never ends.)

Well, some people wait for a non < 1.0 release.  I know I did.

> Now, Consider the previous statement a direct *POKE* at the people I refer 
to
> as lusers.  Did they read the documentation?  

What?!?!?!  You just stated that the documentation isn't comparably
mature.  Actually, you stated that it wasn't comparably mature, and
that it's quite nice.  Or maybe it's just the code that's quite nice.
Perhaps you could clarify.  Or, being intentionally rude, perhaps you
won't.

> Did the read the part about profiles?  

In the comparably less mature documentation?  Are you talking about
the Portage Manual section 1, under Defaults, which talks about profiles
only in the context of default and auto USE variables (and not to change
make.defaults under make.profile/)?

Perhaps there's another profile documentation section which describes
how profiles should be used by the user to submit bug reports for
the current profile?  Not the Portage User Guid.  The word profile
doesn't exist there.

I think these kind of rants would be more effective with pointers
to the exact sections of documentation being referenced.  Because
as I enter my 7th day of reading gentoo docs, I'm not seeing them.

-- 
John White

Mr. White,

My point to lusers was simple.  Gentoo is young.  Thus, the documentation is
not as mature as %95 of the newer gentoo users are used to (as compared to
more mature distributions).

My point to developers was also simple.  Preaching patience does not help
users effectively use Gentoo.  Documention that does not confuse lusers,
rather educates them, is absolutely necessary at this juncture.  This will
get a lot of the lusers off the developers backs so they can do what they do
best... write code... not documentation.

I believe I made mention about the maturity of the profiles documentation,
but whereas that was not the point of my rant, maybe I did not stress it
enough.  If I did not, then I apologise for the confusion I caused you.

Here's an idea!  Help the developers help you!  Learn as much as you can with
what they give you... ask educated questions, get answers, and take notes. 
Give your notes to the developers so they know where the weeknesses in Gentoo
and the documentation there of, resides.

Will that help?  Let the flames continue.

=====
---
"To thine own self be true." - Shakespeare

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