On Tue, 24 Apr 2007, Julien Guertault wrote: > Why would not a book presenting a few of the main features of fvwm be > worth it?
It depends what you mean by "book". If you mean a printed thing which has to be bought in a bookshop paying money, I doubt me (or my organization) will ever consider it worth the fuss buying it. I'm not saying a reference printed book is a nasty thing, it is handy to read on the sofa at home during a rainy weekend, and there are cases in which the amount of material is simply too large for any other practical form of documentation (I have read the Postscript Language Reference and part of the X Window System reference in book form, although we did not buy them explicitly, but received them bundled with the OS documentation). But fvwm is not as big as THOSE ... If by "book" you mean a (free) downloadable PDF document, fine, one can consult it online or print it to read it on the tram. Its usefulness mostly depends on how well written it is ! But, assuming it is well written, why not provide it as a set of HTML pages packed with cross reference links ? [configuring fvwm from an empty config file] > me and my needs. And I am sorry but this is not a piece of cake. When I agree it is "not a piece of cake". As it is not to start writing one's .procmailrc, or to tweak a sendmail.cf (maybe a Digital Equipment provided one using a SunOS reference manual ... been there done that ... and I'm just a poor astrophycist, not a sysman). > But anyway, I just meant man pages are not the ultimate documentation > media. Definitely they are not the ultimate documentation LAYOUT, as they are essentially FLAT, irrespective of how one divides them in subsections. But an HTML document arranged in hierarchical manner (maybe more than one, by topic, by increasing complication, by examples) and providing lots of cross reference links is a better reference. Is that a "book" ? If yes, it can be indeed very useful. -- ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Lucio Chiappetti - INAF/IASF - via Bassini 15 - I-20133 Milano (Italy) For more info : http://www.iasf-milano.inaf.it/~lucio/personal.html ------------------------------------------------------------------------
