From owner-freebsd-doc Sat Apr 6 15:11:32 2002 Delivered-To: freebsd-doc@freebsd.org Received: from mao.stokely.org (mao.stokely.org [65.84.64.228]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 47BD437B41C; Sat, 6 Apr 2002 15:11:27 -0800 (PST) Received: by mao.stokely.org (Postfix, from userid 2074) id F278F4B669; Sat, 6 Apr 2002 15:11:26 -0800 (PST) Date: Sat, 6 Apr 2002 15:11:26 -0800 From: Murray Stokely To: Giorgos Keramidas Cc: Murray Stokely , freebsd-doc@freebsd.org Subject: Re: Splitting the Handbook? (was: [a couple of new doc PRs]) Message-ID: <20020406231126.GP5732@freebsdmall.com> References: <20020404062954.6607E2E827@mail.freebsdmall.com> <20020406221709.GA1181@hades.hell.gr> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: multipart/signed; micalg=pgp-sha1; protocol="application/pgp-signature"; boundary="x+6KMIRAuhnl3hBn" Content-Disposition: inline In-Reply-To: <20020406221709.GA1181@hades.hell.gr> User-Agent: Mutt/1.3.25i X-GPG-Key-ID: 1024D/0E451F7D X-GPG-Key-Fingerprint: E2CA 411D DD44 53FD BB4B 3CB5 B4D7 10A2 0E45 1F7D Sender: owner-freebsd-doc@FreeBSD.ORG Precedence: bulk List-ID: List-Archive: (Web Archive) List-Help: (List Instructions) List-Subscribe: List-Unsubscribe: X-Loop: FreeBSD.org --x+6KMIRAuhnl3hBn Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Disposition: inline On Sun, Apr 07, 2002 at 01:17:09AM +0300, Giorgos Keramidas wrote: > This is hard to search though. It's difficult for a newcomer to find his > way around in this huge document. It is time, I think to separate the > Handbook in smaller parts. The main thing that I was thinking about is how It's been time for over 4 years, we've just never identified the first concrete step to move in that direction. > - Server machines. > - Workstations. > - (Both, but this can clearly be covered in the previous parts.) I think that the 3rd printed edition (which I've obviously been doing some initial planning for) should be split into two books along these lines. I was planning on a "User's Guide" and an "Administrator's Guide". If the FreeBSD Documentation Project makes further subdivisions into smaller books, they can be mapped into these two categories for print publication purposes. A collection of smaller books is not practical for U.S. retail shelves, although if done right it can make online browsing easier. > But what can we hope to achieve by splitting the documentation in > server/workstation categories? Well, for one thing, PRs like the two The model you outlined works well for docs.sun.com, where tens of thousands of pages of documentation are available. I'm definitely in favor of higher level "collections" that can contain books / articles on similar topics. For the 2nd Edition Handbook, we pulled in one of the articles to supplement a chapter of the Handbook that was lacking. We've gained many new articles since that time, so this sort of overlap will become increasingly apparent. > Internet mail works, to propose making this a separate book. One > part, two parts (sysadmin & user), it's not really important to have > everything organized and working perfectly right from the beginning. > What is important is, what do you all thing about doing this? I could I don't think splitting off one chapter of the Handbook is a good place to start. I would rather start by splitting the Handbook in two. If you just split this one chapter off, then you are stuck with a weird inconsistency for as long as it takes us to finish the work ("Everything is in the handbook, ohh except for Internet Mail, that is in a separate section"). If you start off by splitting the Handbook in two based on the existing divisions of the book ("Getting Started", and "System Administration", with the appendices split between the two as appropriate), then you don't sacrifice consistency in any way. > if I can hope in having your help & assistance in writing those > sections I'm not very good with, or if you'd prefer all this to stay > in the existing Handbook, as a chapter, perhaps two. Above all else, I'd just like to see the content available, no matter where it ends up. ;) - Murray --x+6KMIRAuhnl3hBn Content-Type: application/pgp-signature Content-Disposition: inline -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v1.0.6 (SunOS) Comment: For info see http://www.gnupg.org iD8DBQE8r4CdtNcQog5FH30RAsh3AJ9H7KjcgFTkWvwnAeV/uZn5f9W5MgCgxnqi Y+hIwD66bKvbB9KIDQ0GMlE= =giav -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- --x+6KMIRAuhnl3hBn-- To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-doc" in the body of the message