Terminal tutorials

[Dougie Richardson]

Hi Andrew,

2009/5/28 Andrew Sayers <andrew-bugs.launchpad.net at pileofstuff.org>:
[snip]
> Suggested solution:
>
> I think we need a set of tutorials that:
>
>  * quickly teaches basic terminal use from first principles
>  * teaches things in really small chunks
>  * lets the user feel in control (not passively being lectured)
>  * works really hard to keep the user's attention
>  * Lets howto-writers in the forum start their guides with
>    "If you're new to the forums, try the tutorials before reading this"
>
> I've written a small program that shows a possible implementation.  It's
> called terminal-tutorials in my PPA:

Its an interesting system and works quite well but what would work better is to
do the same thing on line, which I've seen done with Ruby somewhere, yes
here: http://tryruby.hobix.com/ I don't know if that's doable with bash but
something similar must be and would be more portable to other projects.

I also think this would be better suited to the Learning project rather than
documentation.  Our delivery is very much XML, although this could be delivered
through HUC, I can't see it being where people would look for it.

I'd also question whether the target user group is accurate.  You seem to have
highlighted two groups - "power users" who I would argue aren't going
to sit through
training any more than a HOWTO; and people following HOWTO from the
forum - which,
IMHO tend to be step by step anyway.  Both these user groups, I'd have
thought, would
be better suited by something condensed to just the commands, examples
and explanation
perhaps in a single page - like a cheat sheet.

Just my £0.05.

Regards,

Dougie Richardson
http://www.lynxworks.eu/
dougierichardson at ubuntu.com