Re: A quality operating system
I can see this will be important here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/False_dilemma On Wed, Aug 24, 2011 at 9:32 PM, Polytropon wrote: > But allow me to say > that _if_ you are interested in contributing in _that_ > way, you should always bring examples and name _concrete_ > points you're criticizing, instead of just mentioning > wide ranges of "this doesn't conform to my interpretation > of what 'professional' should look like". The problem with your statement is that it does not allow for general critique, which is also needed. If something shows up in more than one place, it is a general critique. > In most cases, documentation requires you to have a minimal > clue of what you're doing. There's terminology you simply > have to know, and concepts to understand in order to use > the documentation. See the Wikipedia page above -- the problem isn't one of user competence, but of poorly-written documentation that is fundamentally disorganized. Have you looked at any of the documentation coming out of Redmond right now? How do you think FreeBSD's documentation stands up to that? > Different kinds of users have different preferences. Some > like to use the web, like to use Wikis and discussion boards. > Others like to use structured web pages. Again, other like > web pages too, but want to have as much information in _one_ > (long) page. And there are those who do not want to depend > on the web - those like man pages. The question isn't form, but content. > If you're used to some specific _way_ of documentation, you > will maybe value anything that's _different_ from that way > as being inferior, non-professional, or less helpful. I think I'm talking about professional level documentation, not a specific "style." > Also keep in mind that especially for developers, the SOURCE > CODE also is an important piece of documentation. Here FreeBSD > is very good, compared to other systems. We're talking end-user documentation here. > Here the "one size fits all" problem arises. It's really hard > to make documentation "for everybody". I disagree. It's very clear what must be done because multiple archetypes exist. > Note the presence of ":-)" and the abilities of english native > speakers who are much more able to express "between the lines" > than I am, for example. If so, it's just them trying to cover up the inherently defensive and reactionary nature of their comments. Would they send such an email on a business list? > You can "predict" that everywhere. Just go to any halfway > specialized setting and make claims about something not > meeting your requirements I've never had this problem when the claims have been stated professionally -- only here. ___ freebsd-questions@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to "freebsd-questions-unsubscr...@freebsd.org"
Re: A quality operating system
I didn't expect this much response. Some interesting stuff: On Sat, Aug 20, 2011 at 1:49 AM, Test Rat wrote: > > There is an ongoing discussion on arch@ about this. > > http://lists.freebsd.org/pipermail/freebsd-arch/2011-August/011412.html This is an excellent discussion. Thank you. On Sat, Aug 20, 2011 at 12:12 PM, Dave Pooser wrote: > > My own take: > > 1) I really don't see the Handbook as all that great. It's Every professional documentarian I've encountered agrees with you. It's inconsistent, wordy, and has no concept of the order of introduction of its concepts. No professional software package would ship with documentation this bad. The multiple grammatical errors only enhance the sense of its fundamentally confused nature as a document. On Sat, Aug 20, 2011 at 2:08 PM, Polytropon wrote: > > Well, in _this_ area, I would also agree that work should be > done to concentrate documentation, e. g. make an "essence" from > knowledge and examples in mailing lists, web forums and so on. > But there are too many of them, and you simply cannot put all > the possible things into "the one documentation" project. This isn't as big of a project as you make it seem. In fact, it will reduce your workload and that of your users. I think the comments above provide a good starting point for actual discussion. As far as people proving my point about the BSD community being reactionary: (1) This is a good discussion. Thank you for mentioning it. On Sat, Aug 20, 2011 at 2:19 AM, Odhiambo Washington wrote: > > That whole paragraph is some irrelevant assertion. (2) On Sat, Aug 20, 2011 at 2:45 AM, Open Slate Project wrote: > > Perhaps you would be happier at an Apple Store. (3) On Sat, Aug 20, 2011 at 7:30 AM, Hasse Hansson wrote: > Happy Trolling :-) (4) On Sat, Aug 20, 2011 at 1:09 PM, Michael Sierchio wrote: > > Are you lazy, or stupid? man freebsd-update (5) On Sat, Aug 20, 2011 at 1:31 PM, mikel king wrote: > > I do not think it is worth wasting important list bandwidth on your flame > fodder. These angry non-sequiturs just reek of defensiveness. I think I predicted these behaviors when I spoke of "cliques" and the nasty, elitist side of geek culture. On Sat, Aug 20, 2011 at 12:13 AM, Gary Gatten wrote: > Well.... This should spawn some interesting responses. I shall sit back and > enjoy > > - Original Message - > From: Evan Busch [mailto:antiequal...@gmail.com] > Sent: Friday, August 19, 2011 11:47 PM > To: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org > Subject: A quality operating system > > Hi, > > I make decisions about hardware and software for those who work with me. > > Talking with my second in command this morning, we reached a quandary. > Ron is completely pro-Linux and pro-Windows, and against FreeBSD. > > What is odd about this is that he's the biggest UNIX fanatic I know, > not only all types of UNIX (dating back quite some time) but also all > Unix-like OSen. > > I told him I was considering FreeBSD because of greater stability and > security. > > He asked me a question that stopped me dead: > > "What is a quality operating system?" > > > In his view, and now mine, a quality operating system is reliable, > streamlined and clearly organized. > > Over the past few years, FreeBSD has drifted off-course in this > department, in his view. > > Let me share the points he made that I consider valid (I have deleted > two as trivial, and added one of my own): > > (1) Lack of direction. > > FreeBSD is still not sure whether it is a desktop OS, or a server OS. > It is easy for the developers to say "well, it's whatever you want," > but this makes the configuration process more involved. This works > against people who have to use these operating systems to get anything > done. > > In his view, a crucial metric here is the ability to estimate time > required for any task. It may be a wide window, but it should not be > as wide as "anywhere from 30 minutes to 96 hours." In his experience, > FreeBSD varies widely on this front because in the name of keeping > options open, standardization of interface and process has been > deprecated. > > (2) Geek culture. > > Geek culture is the oldest clique on the internet. Their goal is to > make friends with no one who is not like them. As a result, they > specialize in the arcane, disorganized and ambiguous. This forces > people to go through the same hoops they went through. This makes them > happy, and drives away people who need to use operating systems to > achieve real-world results. They reduce a community to hobbyists only. > > (3) Horrible documentation. > > This is
A quality operating system
Hi, I make decisions about hardware and software for those who work with me. Talking with my second in command this morning, we reached a quandary. Ron is completely pro-Linux and pro-Windows, and against FreeBSD. What is odd about this is that he's the biggest UNIX fanatic I know, not only all types of UNIX (dating back quite some time) but also all Unix-like OSen. I told him I was considering FreeBSD because of greater stability and security. He asked me a question that stopped me dead: "What is a quality operating system?" In his view, and now mine, a quality operating system is reliable, streamlined and clearly organized. Over the past few years, FreeBSD has drifted off-course in this department, in his view. Let me share the points he made that I consider valid (I have deleted two as trivial, and added one of my own): (1) Lack of direction. FreeBSD is still not sure whether it is a desktop OS, or a server OS. It is easy for the developers to say "well, it's whatever you want," but this makes the configuration process more involved. This works against people who have to use these operating systems to get anything done. In his view, a crucial metric here is the ability to estimate time required for any task. It may be a wide window, but it should not be as wide as "anywhere from 30 minutes to 96 hours." In his experience, FreeBSD varies widely on this front because in the name of keeping options open, standardization of interface and process has been deprecated. (2) Geek culture. Geek culture is the oldest clique on the internet. Their goal is to make friends with no one who is not like them. As a result, they specialize in the arcane, disorganized and ambiguous. This forces people to go through the same hoops they went through. This makes them happy, and drives away people who need to use operating systems to achieve real-world results. They reduce a community to hobbyists only. (3) Horrible documentation. This is my specialty and has been since the early 1980s. The FreeBSD documentation is wordy, disorganized, inconsistent and highly selective in what it mentions. It is not the product of professionals but it also not the product of volunteers with a focus on communication. It seems pro-forma, as in, "it's in the documentation, so don't bother me." The web site compounds this error by pointing us in multiple directions instead of to a singular resource. It is bad enough that man pages are separate from your main documentation tree, but now you have doubled or trebled the workload required of you without any benefit to the end user. (4) Elitism. To a developer, looking at some inconsistent or buggy interface and thinking, "If they can't do this, they don't belong using FreeBSD anyway" is too easy of a thought. Yet it looks to me like this happens quite a bit, and "this is for the elite" has become the default orientation. This is problematic in that there are people out there who are every bit as smart as you, or smarter, but are not specialized in computers. They want to use computers to achieve results; you may want to play around with your computer as an activity, but that is not so for everyone. (5) Hostile community. For the last several weeks, I have been observing the FreeBSD community. Two things stand out: many legitimate questions go ignored, and for others, response is hostile resulting in either incorrect answers, haughty snubs, and in many cases, a refusal to admit when the problem is FreeBSD and not the user. In particular, the community is oblivious to interfaces and chunks of code that have illogical or inconsistent interfaces, are buggy, or whose function does not correspond to what is documented (even in the manpages). (6) Selective fixes. I am guilty of this too, sometimes, but when you hope to build an operating system, it is a poor idea. Programmers work on what they want to work on. This leaves much of the unexciting stuff in a literal non-working state, and the entire community oblivious to it or uncaring. As Ron detailed, huge parts of FreeBSD are like buried land mines just waiting to detonate. They are details that can invoke that 30 minute to 96 hour time period instantly, usually right before you need to get something done. (7) Disorganized website. The part of the FreeBSD project that should set the tone for the community, the FreeBSD website, reflects every one of these criticisms. It is inconsistent and often disorganized; there is no clear path; resources are duplicated and squirreled away instead of organized and made into a process for others to follow. It is arcane, nuanced and cryptic for the purpose of keeping the community elitist, hobbyist and hostile to outsiders. In addition, huge portions of it break on a regular basis and seem to go unnoticed. The attitude of "that's for beginners, so we don't need it" persists even there. With the graphic design of the website I have no problem, but the arrangement of resources on it reflects a lack
Re: Is the forum dead?
Probably not just me: 628 ms28 ms28 ms ggr6.dlstx.ip.att.net [12.122.139.113] 728 ms29 ms28 ms 192.205.36.178 853 ms 223 ms 223 ms te4-8.ccr02.dfw01.atlas.cogentco.com [154.54.1.23] But definitely a problem with the intermediate connections. Thanks for confirming it's alive. On Wed, Aug 17, 2011 at 3:08 PM, Vincent Hoffman wrote: > On 17/08/2011 20:20, Evan Busch wrote: >> I have a confirmation link from the vBulletin software asking me to go to >> >> http://forums.freebsd.org/ >> >> Yet this host appears to be down and has been since last night. >> >> Who do I ask about this? Or is this an unannounced scheduled downtime? > > http://www.downforeveryoneorjustme.com/forums.freebsd.org > Just down for you perhaps? > > > Vince >> ___ >> freebsd-questions@freebsd.org mailing list >> http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions >> To unsubscribe, send any mail to "freebsd-questions-unsubscr...@freebsd.org" > > ___ > freebsd-questions@freebsd.org mailing list > http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions > To unsubscribe, send any mail to "freebsd-questions-unsubscr...@freebsd.org" > ___ freebsd-questions@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to "freebsd-questions-unsubscr...@freebsd.org"
Is the forum dead?
I have a confirmation link from the vBulletin software asking me to go to http://forums.freebsd.org/ Yet this host appears to be down and has been since last night. Who do I ask about this? Or is this an unannounced scheduled downtime? ___ freebsd-questions@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to "freebsd-questions-unsubscr...@freebsd.org"
