Mail Archives: djgpp/1997/08/17/16:22:26
On Thu, 14 Aug 1997 07:37:59 -0700, Erik Max Francis <max AT alcyone DOT com>
wrote:
>M. Schulter wrote:
>
>> Of course, reading the docs is only the starting point. People can miss
>> details, misunderstand things, or fail to realize that a problem they
>> perceive in one way is really synonymous with an issue covered in the
>> FAQ
>> or other DJGPP documentation under a different name.
>
>I make a distinction between someone who has looked at the README and the
>FAQ and still doesn't understand (for whatever reason), and those that
>haven't even bothered looking and want me to find the passage in the FAQ
>for them.
Yes; I think it's helpful to answer courteously nonetheless. For
example, rather than saying `This is explained in section X.Y of the
FAQ' and giving a short description, perhaps it's better to say
`Search the FAQ [contents/index] for "zzzzzzz" and you'll find your
answer'. I don't know, though; it seems more sociable (to the asker)
to give the exact reference.
Of course, saying that it's explained in section X of the FAQ (not
giving the subsection number) would force the reader to look through
the contents page, thus possibly seeing answers to many more questions
they would otherwise have asked the next day.
Perhaps a web-based version of this Oracle would be most effective at
guiding FAQs away from the group; I don't think people really look at
what they've installed on their hard drive. Then again, I wonder how
many newbies here have bothered to read the DJGPP User's Guide; though
incomplete, it is instructive and might be more what they're looking
for in terms of documentation, rather than the lasagne-code FAQ :)
--
george DOT foot AT merton DOT oxford DOT ac DOT uk
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