discuss: Thread: small demo page

On 8/19/05, jdd ####@####.#### wrote:

> anyway, any wiki engine produces html for the browser, this
> is another way of choice.

Right, and MediaWiki lets you do things like
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/index.php?title=Linux&printable=yes

(to get a print-friendly version)

as-opposed to say just
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/index.php?title=Linux&printable=0

Note differences in how URLs are rendered.

I must say I don't think think  mediawiki -> docbook  would 
be advisable.

There are just too many things you can represent in HTML
that cannot be represented in docbook.

Wiki markup languages often includes some html, and 
for included templates (even on MediaWiki) some inline CSS, 
font,  and  other presentation controls, are usually specified -- 
things  that would be out of the scope of the fairly restrictive 
language of docbook.

I would imagine  HTML -> PS/PDF  conversion filters already
exist, though,  the ones that are popular right now might not 
be the best choices for producing high quality
printed output


-- 
-Mysid

Saqib,

I agree with you completely :) I hope that your idea may be submitted to the
community as a proposal.

I have nothing to add nor subtract.

Cheers,
JA


On Fri, 19 Aug 2005, Saqib Ali wrote:

> > but the real question is: do the tldp need a new way to
> > communicate between users and authors. I think personnaly
> > that there is a great lack of comms here, but I know also,
> > there is much documentation out of the ldp, now, and often
> > more up to date. tldp may be silently dying...
>
> i personally think TLDP as it currently exist should now retire. Most
> of the HOWTOs (including mine) are not needed anymore, since the linux
> distros and other opensource apps have started producing excellent
> documentation. Check out the documentation produced by RedHat. It is
> excellent. Same goes for Apache.
>
> TLDP should now change their business philosophy. I would like to see
> a searchable (google-able) database of the documentations produced by
> OpenSource/Linux vendors. The readers should be able to add comments
> and provide feedback and sample code to each topic, much like what
> mySQL does.
>
> Any thoughts?

Saqib Ali wrote:
>>but the real question is: do the tldp need a new way to
>>communicate between users and authors. I think personnaly
>>that there is a great lack of comms here, but I know also,
>>there is much documentation out of the ldp, now, and often
>>more up to date. tldp may be silently dying...
> 
> i personally think TLDP as it currently exist should now retire. Most
> of the HOWTOs (including mine) are not needed anymore, since the linux
> distros and other opensource apps have started producing excellent
> documentation. Check out the documentation produced by RedHat. It is
> excellent. Same goes for Apache.


Here is one small example in favor of TLDP:

BASH comes with excellent documentation produced by GNU.

TLDP has a document called "The Advanced BASH Scripting Guide".

The information contained in both docs is basically the same, but if
someone asked me, "how do I write a shell script?" I would tell them to
read The Advanced BASH Scripting Guide.  The ABS Guide is presented in a
way that is far easier for a newbie to digest.

The DNS-HOWTO is another good example.  There are probably more.

Dave

I am sure there are few HOWTOs that have information which is not
available on the vendor's website. This is where we need to contact
the vendor and provide with updates and improvements to their
documentation. And probably vendors are in the best position to
maintain it in the long term.

> Here is one small example in favor of TLDP:
> 
> BASH comes with excellent documentation produced by GNU.
> 
> TLDP has a document called "The Advanced BASH Scripting Guide".
> 
> The information contained in both docs is basically the same, but if
> someone asked me, "how do I write a shell script?" I would tell them to
> read The Advanced BASH Scripting Guide.  The ABS Guide is presented in a
> way that is far easier for a newbie to digest.


-- 
In Peace,
Saqib Ali
http://www.xml-dev.com/blog/
Consensus is good, but informed dictatorship is better.

> i personally think TLDP as it currently exist should now retire. Most
> of the HOWTOs (including mine) are not needed anymore, since the linux
> distros and other opensource apps have started producing excellent
> documentation. Check out the documentation produced by RedHat. It is
> excellent. Same goes for Apache.

There are a few howtos for which there is no substitute anywhere else. 
It's true that you can always look up the manual or other documentation 
on the main site, but these howtos pretty much directly provide the 
infromation (in an easy-to-understand language) instead of going through 
a long man page. Top of my head I refer to these howtos as the main 
source for the particular topics.

*) Program Library HOWTO
*) Advanced Bash Scripting Guide
*) NFS-howto
*) NIS-howto
*) Text-Terminal-HOWTO

That said, there are many howtos that are just out-of-date and need a 
major overhaul.

-- 
Pradeep Padala
http://ppadala.blogspot.com

> *) Program Library HOWTO
> *) Advanced Bash Scripting Guide
> *) NFS-howto
> *) NIS-howto
> *) Text-Terminal-HOWTO

I am sure these are excellent and well-written HOWTOs.

But I think the face of information management is changing. I have
some experience in this area.

When people download XYZ application, they gunzip it and look for the
README or INSTALL files. I have rarely seen anyone go out and look for
an HOWTO on install an application. Having said that, if there are
issues during the install, people go out and search the Usenet or
FAQs, where they probably find the answer. If all else fails, they go
ahead and join a mailinglist / support group / usenet and discuss
their problems (technical and otherwise :) ).

I have seen the Advanced Bash Scripting Guide, and I think it can be
converted to an FAQ, which can be stored in a FAQ management system,
for easier access.

People don't just read HOWTOs. They don't have time. They want quick
fix. They want an FAQ entry which relates to their problems. If they
have time, they purchase books and read about the topic in detail.

Just my $.02.

-- 
In Peace,
Saqib Ali
http://www.xml-dev.com/blog/
Consensus is good, but informed dictatorship is better.

> People don't just read HOWTOs. They don't have time. They want quick
> fix. They want an FAQ entry which relates to their problems. If they
> have time, they purchase books and read about the topic in detail.

I agree with this, but not everything can be written in a FAQ. For 
example, look at the KernelNewbiesWiki at 
http://wiki.kernelnewbies.org/wiki. Somehow, I never liked the 
organization, it's just a random set of pages with useful information 
thrown in somewhere. On the other hand, look at 
http://www.tldp.org/LDP/lki/. It's a nice document, just a set of notes 
by Tigran, but well organied with a nice flow. Ofcourse, I always go for 
the "Understanding the Linux Kernel" book for final reference.

What I mean is, a nicely written HOWTO/Guide is better than a FAQ or 
even a Wiki with pages edited randomly.

> Just my $.02.

-- 
Pradeep Padala
http://ppadala.blogspot.com

I din't think, when I wrote my post, I was to start a flame :-)

when I said that the tldp may be silently dying, I was a bit 
provocative and don't think the death could be fast. tldp 
can live many years then.

think that when you ask google, tldp HOWTO's are usually 
very near the top of the list. I usually use google to find 
a HOWTO in place of the tldp list :-)

so any change must be carefully studied. But changes have to 
be done, peacefully and slowly.

jdd

-- 
pour m'écrire, aller sur:
http://www.dodin.net
http://valerie.dodin.net
http://arvamip.free.fr

Quoting jdd ####@####.####

> when I said that the tldp may be silently dying, I was a bit 
> provocative...
  ^^^^^^^^^^^

I believe you misspelled "trolling". 

When you want to start being taken seriously, please feel free to try
again.

Rick Moen wrote:
> Quoting jdd ####@####.####
> 
> 
>>when I said that the tldp may be silently dying, I was a bit 
>>provocative...
> 
>   ^^^^^^^^^^^
> 
> I believe you misspelled "trolling". 
> 
> When you want to start being taken seriously, please feel free to try
> again.

I said "a bit", a bit only. it's not really a troll. do you 
read the mails that started this thread some weeks ago? it 
was about authors desapearing from the net :-). Most tldp 
authors do not answer anymore. most HOWTO are out of date.

is it possible to have a ratio of the amount of open source 
doc tldp/not tldp. ten years ago, tldp what pretty alone. 
now there are many.

we can't live without seeing the web move.

jdd

-- 
pour m'écrire, aller sur:
http://www.dodin.net
http://valerie.dodin.net
http://arvamip.free.fr