Date: Sun, 6 Jul 1997 17:27:35 +0300 (IDT) From: Eli Zaretskii To: Phil Galbiati cc: djgpp AT delorie DOT com Subject: Re: DJGPP is in WAY too many pieces In-Reply-To: Message-ID: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Precedence: bulk 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.)