Mail Archives: djgpp/1997/07/06/10:28:09
On Tue, 1 Jul 1997, Phil Galbiati wrote:
> Furthermore, I believe that your assertion that "we are all
> computer-literate programmers" is false. Many DJGPP users are
> completely new to computing, and should not be relied upon [yet] to
> do anything besides driving Netscape or M$ Internet Exploiter (but
> not both).
IMHO, it is pointless to request that DJGPP will present zero-slope
learning curve to computer-illiterate people. Such goals, while
doubtlessly noble, require resources that DJGPP (or any free software
project, for that matter) just doesn't have. You need people who can
write crystal-clear English technical prose, have good understanding
of DJGPP internals, and can see things through the eyes of a newbie on
top of that. I have yet to see such people, even in commercial
firms, to say nothing of ever having such people here, working for free;
volunteers are welcome.
Installing and using free software will always require to look around,
and in particular read every piece of documentation in sight. Like
Shawn, I fail to understand how could anybody miss a file called
README.1ST, or read only parts of it, and then complain that things
don't work.
> 1) Converting README.1ST to HTML, and including a Table of
> Contents at the top. I think that people are more prone to
> poke around with their web browsers than with their text
> editors.
Please feel free to contribute such README.html, and let's see if that
will have any effect whatsoever on the flow of already-answered
questions. Somehow, I doubt it would, but it doesn't hurt to try.
> 2) Including a copy of the converted README.HTM in at least one
> (if not all) of the "required" binary zips.
FYI: such a README was included in v1x distribution, but I don't think
it had any effect on the amount of such questions.
> 3) Making sure that all references to FTP & web sites in the FAQ,
> the mini-FAQ, and the README, are fully qualified (i.e. that they
> include the "ftp://" or "http://" protocol specifiers).
The FAQ already does that. (In fact, the single most important reason
for most of the semi-kludgy process of generating HTML from Texinfo
sources was invented because I *wanted* every reference to be
converted to a full URL automatically.)
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