At 12:33 PM 2/17/99 -0500, you wrote:
<rant snipped>
>> You are right again. After ppl have pointed me to the appropriate
>> place (not all of which are easy to find if you're a relative
>> novice in sysadmin terms) everything *is* in the docs. Understanding
>> it once it's there is another matter. New sysadmin's have to learn
>
>I wasn't meaning to come across as mad-at-you, and I hope you didn't take
>it that way.
Not at all... *8-)
<snip>
> That's why I
>suggested reading *all* the man pages; unless you're a slow reader, you
>can do it in an evening. If you've even skimmed them all, you'll remember
>vaguely what's there.
True; when I read the FAQ I was in a hurry and only
read the immediately relevant entry, I intend now to
remedy that.
<snippage>
Let's face it guys, it all works because you guys help
>> out the new guys, who become experienced and help out more new guys.
>> That's why we're a *community* right?
>
>That's why I answered your original question; I do agree with you. On
>the other hand, it does get old answering FAQs.
>
>Anybody who's new to qmail, please do yourself and the list a favour:
>read the FAQ, all of it.
Thoroughly agreed, and my own guilt admitted in my
followup below. However, I have retained my comment
about community because I'm going to return to it later.
>[snip]
>> Qmail documentation is impressive in it's comprehensiveness but
>> it is a little less so in it's comprehension. It can be very difficult
>> to understand what is being said, be it as it may that what is said
>> is entirely accurate.
This is partly to expand for later comment. What I mean here
is that if you are new to the unix admin community and
terminology and *concepts*, thought patterns (eg me; I've been
involved for all of 6 months, sporadically because I have this
work thing getting in the way *8-) then qmail documentation
can be confusing not through innaccuracy but through assumed
knowledge. It's written for the experienced/talented, by
the experienced/talented. Not a fault in the documentation, but
a good reason for the help that you guys provide in this list here.
<snippage of manual suggestions>
>
>> The fact that everything can be found and that some questions are
>> stupid (the particular question I asked which prompted this thread
>> happens to be one of them; if I'd re-read the FAQ rather than the
>> list archives I'd have caught it myself) doesn't mean that ppl,
>> particularly people new to the game like myself, are going to need
>> *and*benefit*from* advice and help from more experienced users like
>> yourselves.
>
>Again, I agree with you that newcomers will need some help, and it's the
>job of more experienced people to help them. (Imagine how much better the
>real world would work if we used this thinking there, but I digress :-).
>We just wish that more people would read the documentation, especially the
>FAQ.
True, sir; I thoroughly agree with you both in content
and in digression. But as above, reading the docs (which in
this particular case I didn't but in others I have done and
still gone slightly or majorly wrong) is not synonymous with
fully understanding what's going on.
>> Do, please, be tolerant and patient with us; we do learn, it's
>
>Yeah, I'm getting snippy in my old age [smarten up Tom <whack-on-the-head>]
>Sorry about that.
My response to your rant was as much an over-reaction
as anything you might have said. I've seen similar but
stronger-worded rants frequently in different lists/faq's/news
groups over the last few weeks, and i guess my response
was building. The feeling is rapidly appearing among the experienced
of the internet that the clueless are a bad thing. I
(possibly because I am a teacher of sorts at times) view
the clueless as tomorrows experts and feel it to be my job
to help 'em get there if I know more than they do.
I know ppl who are capable of working out linux and similarly
mind-bending things effectively from first principles by
having an os to play with and then playing. I also know that
the majority of us are simply not in that league. Of the various
forums in which I've tried to get help recently (and there are
a few; my inexperience is farily wide-spread in this sphere)
the two most universally helpfull have been this list and
the apache-ssl list. The only reason the rant that I responded
with got posted here, I guess, is actually because I think here
it would be usefully recieved in a way that in some more cliquey
forums it would be simply ignored/flamed. I certainly implied
no serious personal criticism of either Tom or anyone else
here.
Thanks for your extended attention,
cHris
