Post Hoary

[Jonathan Jesse]

I'm probablly jumping in on everything a little but as posted earlier I just
moved :)

I am Windows Network Admin by training and trade.  I have several Microsoft
certifications that back up my training and close to 5 years of doing so.
When I need to find something on Microsoft that I don't understand, there
are two places I look at: www.microsoft.com/technet and the Microsoft
newsgroups.  While Technet is a great site to be perfectly honest it is a
pain to search and find things there.  I spend time on the site every day
looking up things from event ids to why my group policy changes don't work
corectly.

I recently started learning Linux and have played w/ several distros.  I
think I have finally come home to Ubuntu because of the two things: 1.  Ease
of use and installation and 2.  I found everything on the ubuntu WIKI or the
documentation.

Everyone has talked about how hard it is to learn subversion and also
DocBook.  Well to tell you the truth so far it isn't and I like the fact
that I can take it offline w/ me.

-----Original Message-----
From: ubuntu-doc-bounces at lists.ubuntu.com
[mailto:ubuntu-doc-bounces at lists.ubuntu.com]On Behalf Of Corey Burger
Sent: Sunday, March 06, 2005 4:37 AM
To: Ubuntu Doc List
Subject: Re: Post Hoary


2 thoughts on those -

1. The Documents
I see nothing very exciting about those documents. They are both 2
columns, which can easily be done a number of ways, including tables.
In addition. The Mac document is a marketing guide, NOT documentation.
The RHEL guide is documentation, but wastes a lot of paper, IMHO, with
that sidebar.

2. Target Audience

We really need to think who are we targetting with our documentation.
The vast majority of computer users use the web to get their
information. Google is their friend. If I was updating from RHEL 3 to
4, and if that pdf was not also on the web, I would be very annoyed. I
hate looking at vendor docs for this reason. (And yes I am a computer
tech by training and vocation).

Thus, I feel our primary focus should be getting good task-based short
howtos in a wiki-format on an easily searchable place. Print is dying
and docbook is designed for print, IMHO.

I guess what I am really trying to say is that who gives a damn if
MacOS/WinXP/your favourite Linux distro produces docbook and nice
looking (in print) monolithic stuff. If these methods worked then
there wouldn't be thousands of forums to get support from.

Corey

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