Enrique et al have made some great points re documentation. I'd like to make these observations.
Throughout Asia, manuals (copies) and "how to" books of both popular and also less popular software are available at incredibly cheap prices. Licensed Asia only distribution (AsiaTech et al) of popular titles are widely available for only a few dollars more than the pirate versions, usually at a third or less of the US distributors price. Now the point here; leaving aside issues of piracy & copyright, no one in Asia is selling these quite substantial manual sets & titles at a loss. Rather than get R:Base manuals printed in expensive "first" world countries, why not get R:Base manuals printed in Asia? Name the country, it's still cheaper to print in Asia and ship to the US, even in relatively small runs than to get Manuals and catalogues printed in the USA. Here's another example: Clark Labs, [ www.clarklabs.org ] of Clark University Worchester, MA USA did a survey of it's customers to see whether or not people wanted printed manuals for the new version of it's flagship Idrisi32 GIS software.. They had signalled and intended the new distribution to be CD only but did a customer survey of registered customers via email. Overwhelmingly the vote was for a full set of manuals to come with the distribution even for those of us who where upgrading the substantially enhanced latest version. That is what happened. A gleaming new set of manuals for every person. Yahoo! So much easier to use. I can sit any where to read the MANY pages of new information and commands AND the complete document set is also available from the programs online help system. Truly the best of both worlds. The document set is as follows, Perfect bound Reference & installation guide pp 26, "Guides to GIS and Imageing Processing" Vol 1 pp 193, Vol 2 pp 170 all indexed and cross referenced and a spiral bound tutorial (full of worked examples that are on the distribution CD) pp 298, plus a plasticised A3 sized Quick Reference card all in a solid box. US Customs declaration Price listed for the manual set was USD 50 Further Clark Labs have, and have always had very generous student distribution pricing. This gets students using the full product. It's cheap enough http://www.clarklabs.org/PriceList.asp?cat=2 with a full set of manuals et al to make copying and piracy to be a waste of time and effort. Students gain proficiency with a leading edge product and then when going out into the working world taking with the product with them and doubtless getting the companies that they go into using and purchasing the product at the full price. Everyone wins. Even in a technological, computer orientated age there is still no substitute to being able to thumb through well indexed and cross referenced printed manual set when trying to learn and use software. The solution may be getting manuals printed in Asia. Thailand, India, Pakistan & China seem to be common places for high quality printing at great prices. ================================================ TO SEE MESSAGE POSTING GUIDELINES: Send a plain text email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] In the message body, put just two words: INTRO rbase-l ================================================ TO UNSUBSCRIBE: send a plain text email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] In the message body, put just two words: UNSUBSCRIBE rbase-l ================================================ TO SEARCH ARCHIVES: http://www.mail-archive.com/rbase-l%40sonetmail.com/
