Thanks for good feedback. Can you elaborate at all on what topics you would like to see in a better tutorial?
M On 12/14/2011 11:28 AM, Marco Marongiu wrote: > Hi > > I can't be as specific as lauwersw. I've been a cfengine2 user for some > time, but my experience with cfengine3 is still too small. > > 1) So, on a general note, and resuming what I already said in other > threads, simple file editing is sometimes too hard. E.g.: placing pieces > of text in a very well defined position inside a file is too difficult, > and template files are too feature-poor to be 100% feasible. > > For computers, it may not matter where a comment or a configuration > directive is placed inside a file. But configuration files are also read > by humans, and providing comments and directives in the places a human > expects them to be _is_ important. Placeholders or pseudo-tags are not > the solution: they are workarounds, and may make a file more difficult > to read. > > > 2) Documentation as a whole is not easy to use. We have: > > * a bare-bones tutorial (too bare bones be really useful) > * a complete reference (a bit less than 600 pages...) > * a standard library reference (i.e.: the "Cfengine Open Promise Body > Library" reference) > * a best practices guide > * a number of "Special Topics" guides (more than 30) > > Guess yourself how easy is to find the right path through all these > documents. A reorganization is definitely needed, and a better, richer > tutorial is, too. > > > 3) Maybe connected to the previous problem: the language itself is too > complicated for beginners. It would be nice to have sort of a simplified > language (cfScript?), and a compiler to translate it into cfengine3 > native policies. > > Who enters configuration management has to cope with the first "mind > shift", and switch thinking from a system-per-system basis to classes of > systems. The second mind shift is when they have to apply the theory > using a new high level language. With both cfe2 and cfe3 it was like I > hit a wall in the first weeks. If they are not resolute enough to stick > with cfe, you'll switch to puppet (which is worse, in my opinion, but > whose language is simpler) or something else. > > Simple things must be simple. Having a "language layer" over cfengine > could be a way to lower cfengine's entry barrier. > > > Other than that, I liked cfengine3 a lot so far. > > Ciao > -- bronto > _______________________________________________ > Help-cfengine mailing list > Help-cfengine@cfengine.org > https://cfengine.org/mailman/listinfo/help-cfengine _______________________________________________ Help-cfengine mailing list Help-cfengine@cfengine.org https://cfengine.org/mailman/listinfo/help-cfengine
