On Tuesday, December 17, 2002, at 02:24 AM, Roger Wong wrote:
I wrote a message here a couple of days ago about how poorly documented mostWriting good technical documentation is not easy and being a developer does not make one automatically good at it. The man pages are written from the point of view of developers, as it is easy to write from your own viewpoint, not from the viewpoint of someone new to unix. Developers may get more out of the man pages because they are familiar with the terminology and environment being discussed.
UNIX apps are. I said that most of the man pages were written by developers
for developers. In my opinion, that attitude is outdated and elitist.
It is not the responsibility of open source developers to educate the user to a certain level so s/he can understanding all of the documentation. It is the user's responsibility to be familiar enough with the technology involved so as not to need their hand being held through the whole process. There are many excellent books on the unix world published by Orielly, some are even free, read some.
http://www.oreilly.com/openbook/
Expectations and practices common to commercial software do not apply here, though most companies today do not have documentation for their products as good as many man pages, nor do they update their product as often as is needed.
Keep in mind that 'release early and often' is one of the mantras of the open source movement; the early releases allow others to access the code and help with development from the start, the often is so others can see and help with the patches.
Again, most unix documentation is on par or above many commercial packages. There is no excuse needed here, as there is no expectation.But I don't think that is an excuse to forgo good documentation
You don't understand the development cycle of the open source movement and are mistaking early release as poor quality, see above.and sound software development and deployment.
Fink is at version 0.5. That in it self says that the project is considered 'pre-release' and missing features. It is not being advertised as complete.
I'm a graphic designer by trade. Oftentimes when I am working on a project,Most open source projects are aimed at developers and it is only lately that their audience has broadened. Also, most projects are started because the developer has a need for a type of program that doesn't exist. It is free and open so everyone can help with the development and share the benefits. The goal is never profit, but utility.
I assume that the audience--the end user--will understand something because
it's so obvious. But to be a good designer is to step back and really think
about the audience and realize that maybe they WON'T understand something
because indeed, I as the designer was too close to it. I think this same
principle applies in the case of software design (and not mention other
aspects of everyday life, like programming a universal remote).
The user should be grateful for it being free; you are not buying anything and so are entitled to nothing. If anything the user should feel obliged to help in some way, though there is no expectation from the developers to do so. If you don't like it, write your own program, that's what the open source developers did. I don't mean that in a nasty way, but that it is your choice to go elsewhere with no loss as you have nothing invested.
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