Date: Fri, 12 Jul 1996 10:51:38 -0700 From: Doug Wellington <doug@sun1paztcn.wr.usgs.gov> To: freebsd-doc@freebsd.org Cc: doug@sun1paztcn.wr.usgs.gov Subject: Let's hack on the Handbook! ..my ideas... Message-ID: <9607121751.AA29491@sun1paztcn.wr.usgs.gov>
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Hi folks, I've been lurking around the net for a lot of years now (Yes, I remember BEFORE the web started dragging the whole net down!) and I decided that I found my calling - I want to help the FreeBSD project. :-) I'm a hacker, but since I don't know how to hack a Unix kernel or device drivers (YET!), I decided to not hit the source code because I don't want to drag you guys down! ;-) I think I'm pretty good at doing documentation hacking though, so I've been looking at the Handbook situation... I propose a rather thorough reworking of the Handbook. (EEEEK!) ;-) I think it should be divided into three separate handbooks, much like the 4.4BSD doc set from O'Reilly. I like the idea of having one handbook for users (The FreeBSD User's Handbook), one for programmers (The FreeBSD Programmer's Handbook) and a separate one for system administrators (The FreeBSD System Administrator's Handbook). I would possibly divide the System Administrator's Handbook into two separate parts, the first being an installation and hardware guide aimed at one time tasks and a separate "maintenance" guide aimed at tasks that will be repeated. I also think we should have some smaller, more specific guides, much like the Linux HOWTOs or the current tutorials, but I'll leave that for another time... In the current Handbook, there is a lot of good programming help, so I figure we should pull that all out and put it into a guide for everyone that wants to hit the development side. I think that part of the current handbook is the best so far, so I want to concentrate my efforts more to the user and system administrator side. (Especially since I'm not even qualified to write about FreeBSD programming!) I believe that good user and administrator documentation will dramatically increase FreeBSD's usefulness and appeal to the very large group of people who don't have the inclination to write programs or hack the kernel. (I think a large part of success of Linux can be attributed to the large amount of documentation that is aimed toward the casual user, the type that has no interest in "hacking it themselves".) If nobody has objections to the idea of splitting the Handbook into three separate parts, I will start hacking on it. My first step will be to outline the actual structure of the three separate books. I'll broadcast that outline to the documentation list. If there are no objections to it, I'll extract the programmer's info and build the Programmer's Handbook, then start on the System Administrator's and User's books. In addition to changing the overall structure, I plan to write the Email chapter and add a chapter on netnews... (Just to get started, I figure I can at least publish a list of other resources like the various mail FAQs.) What are everyone's thoughts? -Doug Doug Wellington doug@sun1paztcn.wr.usgs.gov System and Network Administrator US Geological Survey, Tucson, AZ Project Office According to proposed Federal guidelines, this message is a "non-record". Hmm, I wonder if _everything_ I say is a "non-record"...? FreeBSD and Apache - the best real tools for the virtual world! Check out www.freebsd.org and www.apache.org...
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