Stanley writes: but how do we transmit deep knowledge of strange computing concepts that experience teaches are rarely happily received (new users always know better, and/or demand their favorite tools) without inducing the candidate to read?
I posit that it is easier for many users to engage with the documentation, position papers, and other materials from a position in which they have a working system in front of them on which to try out the concepts that are being described in the papers. Read a bit, install a system, try a bit, read a bit more, try a bit more, dig into some code, which magically is there and findable with the 'src' command, which they just read about. It's not really possible to read enough to make a smooth install "just work" without significant hand-holding in the early stage. Section 4 of the fqa provides much of this, but it's far down the page, and many readers won't get there. Onboarding is hard, and involves a lot of people with different learning paths and abilities. Paul On Mon, Jun 2, 2025, 3:33 p.m. <[email protected]> wrote: > > It needs to be reliable and easy and, sadly, it can't require lots of > > reading. > > reliable, of course. easy, fine. but without > requiring lots of reading, how? > > plan 9 concepts are different enough that people > have trouble getting their heads around it, > stipulated. but is there really a shortcut to > understanding? > > the whitepapers are short. coming to plan 9 as > a unix admin, a lot of what's in those papers > only really made sense to me in retrospect, > after i'd already absorbed the ideas through > direct contact with the system. > > the man pages mostly conform to the original > unix spirit of single-page documents. the > insistent habit of embedding command flag > options inline in paragraphs is cumbersome > for quick reference, but fine. > > the source is generally compact and readable. > > the fqa attempts to explain some of the stuff > that's not obvious from all of the above. > > but how do we transmit deep knowledge of > strange computing concepts that experience > teaches are rarely happily received (new users > always know better, and/or demand their favorite > tools) without inducing the candidate to read? > > sl ------------------------------------------ 9fans: 9fans Permalink: https://9fans.topicbox.com/groups/9fans/Tbe8e5fda6ae62f5c-Mc70e7c2f707c7ce3646a59d7 Delivery options: https://9fans.topicbox.com/groups/9fans/subscription
