On Thu, Dec 22, 2022 at 02:23:53PM -0500, post...@ptld.com wrote: > > On 12-22-2022 2:18 pm, mailm...@ionos.gr wrote: > > sorry to have to burst your bubble, but postfix does not have documentation > > > > at least not in the way we call documentation these days > > maybe you'd call them "notes" or a "reference guide" but not real > > documentation > > > > it is helpful to people who already know everything, but not helpful to > > people who are learning > > I would disagree. > Postfix has documentation, however it is not a tutorial which is what i think > you are describing. > Documentation isn't meant to be a how-to or tutorial.
I disagree with both. I found that reading all of Postfix's documentation did help me to learn a lot about it, and to finally understand the configuration that I'd inherited from someone else that I'd been using for years only tweaking slightly for my needs. But that probably just suits my preferred way of learning. But not everyone has time to do that. There is a lot of documentation to read. But also, some of a system's documentation can definitely take the form of how-to guides and tutorials. Postfix has many How-To Guides. My favourite theory of documentation is explained here: https://documentation.divio.com/ There are four forms of documentation: Tutorials: Learning-oriented How-To Guides: Problem-oriented Explanation: Understanding-oriented Reference: Information-oriented Postfix itself provides Reference and How-To Guides, but not so much in the way of Tutorials (which others have written and they are available elsewhere online), or Explanation (hundreds of RFCs don't count unless you've really got a lot of time to spare). :-) Postfix's documentation could be improved with more "Explanation" documents, and "Tutorials" (not all that are out there give good advice), but someone has to have the time and desire and ability to write them. Actually, the "Explanation" part of the documentation is probably handled best by the Postfix book: Postfix: The Definitive Guide by Kyle D. Dent https://www.seaglass.com/postfix/ And there are good tutorials/how-tos out there. So maybe all four forms of documentation are well represented, they're just scattered around the internet. If there isn't a How-To for Postfix in Docker and/or behind HAProxy yet, then it would be great if someone who was setting that up and encountering and solving any problems along the way were able to write and publish a How-To Guide to benefit others. cheers, raf
