discuss: Versioning Issues (Oracle 8i HOWTO)
Subject:
Re: Versioning Issues (Oracle 8i HOWTO)
From:
David Lawyer ####@####.####
Date:
16 Jun 2002 18:38:13 -0000
Message-Id: <20020616113825.A369@lafn.org>
On Sun, Jun 16, 2002 at 05:37:49PM +0100, Stephen Darlington wrote:
> Hi,
>
> I thought I'd open this question "to the floor" as I've been getting a
> steady stream of people requesting to update my Oracle 8i for Linux
> Installation HOWTO, but it's currently state is deliberate.
>
> There are a number of problems:
>
> 1. There are quite a number of versions of Oracle that people are still
> trying to install. You'd be surprised how many people are still trying
> to install 8.1.5 which is nearly three years old; I even get emails from
> people still using 7 and know of at least one company still using Oracle
> 6 (obviously not on Linux). The Oracle market is much more conservative
> than that of Linux and not everyone has the latest and greatest.
>
> What I'm trying to say is: I don't want to write out all the useful
> information that is currently in the document, even though much isn't
> relevant for R3.
>
> 2. There are loads of Linux distributions. Just because my document is
> about RedHat 6, it doesn't mean that's what everyone else will try. Even
> if you don't recommend using anything else. Distributions vary rather
> more than you'd expect and cause lots of little problems that all need
> writing down. Again, we need to keep as much *relevant* information as
> possible while keeping the document readable and concise.
>
> 3. If there were either lots of versions of Oracle *or* lots of versions
> of Linux, you might be able to write a single document to cover all the
> options. As it is, I don't see how it's possible without littering the
> document with "if this.." "otherwise that..." "unless..." It would make
> it completely unreadable and useless to almost everyone.
>
> As the HOWTO currently stands, most of the questions I get emailed are
> already answered. The document is just too long for a lot of people to
> read. Its structure has evolved to help most people most easily. I,
> therefore, don't consider more caveats to be a realistic option.
>
> In order to solve these problems, my answer has been to write the HOWTO
> about Redhat 6 and Oracle 8.1.5 and have small errata on my website. I
> feel that this is a reasonable compromise, however that opinion does not
> seem to be universal.
This would be a lot of work, but one could use a preprocessor like m4 so
that it would generate a custom document depending on the versions and
distribution the reader had. You would need an interactive website.
Could lampadas handle this?
David Lawyer
>
> So, does my approach seem reasonable? Or can anyone else think of a
> better approach?
