Dossy wrote:
> I also don't feel that the documentation "sucks." I think "sorely
> out of date" may be more accurate,
Sometimes I hate continuing a discussion that seems very off track. What
is better, an exhaustive O'Reilly 'Definitive Guide', or relatively
complete docs and a community willing to help someone who has at least
read the docs that exist? I can count on one hand the new commands
introduced over the last three years. The commands that are poorly
documented, will probably never be useful to anyone unable to read
through the C source.
Even a complete novice, like me when I stumbled onto AOLserver, should
be able to figure out how to get things working. And things have
significantly inproved over the last three years.
I'm not complaining or arguing with Dossy or anyone else who contributes
to this discussion, rather, I just wonder why we all rush to apologize
to someone who doesn't even appear to have set up a site using
AOLserver.
If someone's use of AOLserver depends on other people's opinion of the
completeness of the docs, what can we say?
The truth is these docs are pretty much consistent with any O'Reilly
'Definitive Guide', after a chapter or two tacked onto the front of the
book so bookstore junkies actually buy the book, you have a listing of
the API, and no real examples. What you really need is to be able to ask
a question and get an answer in a reasonable amount of time. Use the
discussion groups!
Another truth is that if you can program in Tcl, picking up the
AOLserver api is going to be a snap. So anything that teaches you Tcl
will teach you AOLserver. I would recommend Ousterhout's _Tcl and the Tk
Toolkit_ , which might be slightly outdated, but offers the best overall
coverage of the why and how of Tcl.
--Tom Jackson
