Greg,
You are the "old-timer" that I referred to. And as I recall, you did
not use the full name of the manual...
Furthermore, I would have initiated and kept an FAQ of the form you now suggest
if I hadn't been shot down in flames. (It's about the level of contribution I could
commit to since I'm not as good as other contributors at bit twiddling.)
Normally, I keep my whining to myself but this was an opportunity
to demonstrate that you need to consider how your public comments
are received. If you had made a positive comment, or at least tried to
figure out why I made the suggestion in the first place, we would already
have an FAQ.
Craig
----- Original Message -----
From: Greg A. Woods <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: Craig Saunders <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Cc: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Sent: Thursday, September 14, 2000 2:23 PM
Subject: Re: What is Cederqvist?
> [ On Tuesday, September 12, 2000 at 15:34:02 (-0700), Craig Saunders wrote: ]
> > Subject: Re: What is Cederqvist?
> >
> > I find this all very amusing because when I suggested that
> > we should have an FAQ (which would include answers to
> > questions like this) I was told by the loud, obnoxious
> > old-timers that we don't need an FAQ - All the answers
> > are in The Cederqvist.
>
> Well this old timer really thinks it very very very bad form to refer to
> something like this by the disembodied name of its creator (and I hope
> I've never ever used that phrase in any way!). Stupid contractions like
> this are what create meaningless jargon in the first place. If people
> want to give credit to Per Cederqvist (credit which he very much
> deserves I might add!), they should refer to the manual as ``Per
> Cederqvist's CVS Manual''.
>
> As for an FAQ, well when Per Cederqvist wrote the first version of the
> current CVS manual it was to replace the old FAQ which had become
> totally and absolutely unwieldy. It was impossible to use yet people
> were trying to use it in lieu of a proper manual.
>
> Indeed a FAQ in the old form should never be necessary in this context.
> If the documentation for a software package does not answer all
> questions, frequent and infrequent, in a way that's easy to find and
> understand then the solution is most definitely not to create a FAQ,
> especially not in th modern way such FAQs are written from scratch by
> one person as a unique new document on their own.
>
> However a FAQ, of course in the form of a true FAQ which answers
> questions outside the scope of the manual, of which there was once a
> half decent one posted monthly to the list, is a different story....
>
> Often though such FAQs are far more effort than they're worth in this
> day of web pages and search engines.
>
> --
> Greg A. Woods
>
> +1 416 218-0098 VE3TCP <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> <robohack!woods>
> Planix, Inc. <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>; Secrets of the Weird <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
>
