discuss: Al Devs HOWTOs (was Re: Is PHP-HOWTO some kind of joke ?)
Subject:
Re: Al Devs HOWTOs (was Re: Is PHP-HOWTO some kind of joke ?)
From:
Colin Watson ####@####.####
Date:
11 Nov 2003 19:59:12 -0000
Message-Id: <20031111195907.GA7668@riva.ucam.org>
On Tue, Nov 11, 2003 at 02:47:15PM -0500, Randy Kramer wrote:
> There was another issue that I tried to imply at the time (I don't think I
> explicitly raised it, well come to think of it, I did dance around the issue
> a number of times in posts to the list, but still, it was dancing). You
> (David) have touched on it above. I strongly suspect that Al Dev took over
> someone else's document(s), but, IIRC, there was little or no credit given to
> any previous author in the credits.
>
> Aside: My suspicions were aroused because some of the writing was very good
> and factual, and then there were the other things that were clearly his
> (referring to programs he had written, etc.) that were just wierd. (IIRC, at
> the time, part of the C++ document was a rant trying to explain why Java
> would be so much better than C++ for any particular project.)
A few months ago, I flicked through the PHP-HOWTO and wondered to myself
whether I should be shipping it as part of Debian's LDP packages. Since
I don't know much about PHP myself, I went and talked to our php4
maintainer to get a second opinion. According to him, at the time, the
only remotely valuable content in the document had been more or less
directly copied from the documentation on php.net; the rest was mere
invective or just plain wrong.
Of course, we no longer ship the PHP-HOWTO.
Cheers,
--
Colin Watson ####@####.####
