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Date:      Tue, 13 Mar 2001 07:38:16 +1000
From:      "Doug Young" <dougy@bryden.apana.org.au>
To:        "Duke Normandin" <01031149@3web.net>, "David Johnson" <djohnson@acuson.com>, "Mike Meyer" <mwm@mired.org>, <mij@osdn.com>
Cc:        <freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG>
Subject:   Re: documentation issues generally
Message-ID:  <046701c0ab3c$c4a66300$847e03cb@apana.org.au>

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Seems like the docs situation is destined to keep going the same route as
present. Its quite obvious that the "official" docs people are more
interested in the systems used to create docs than the content thereof. The
result is that more & more users (recalling their own difficulty with the
official formats) will establish sites like freebsddiary / bsdvault /
mostgraveconcern / freebsdzine / etc etc to cater for those who (quite
rightly) believe that the official stuff is aimed at the geekship.

I personally don't believe there is any point in submitting material to
freebsd-docs ... I favour an infinitely more user-friendly format (eg
including a bunch of screen dumps, step_by_step examples & "real world"
examples of typical commands) rather than the mind numbing synopsis
style complexity of the man pages. Maybe the man pages aren't the "correct"
place for explicit explanations, but if thats the case then the Handbook
certainly is. To be fair its definitely an improvement on what it was a year
ago & light years ahead of most of the linux equivalents, however the screen
dumps /examples / etc are still conspicuous by their absence. OK so some of
the user-friendly sites have errors .... at least they make an honest
attempt to provide information in an intelligible form which is something
still lacking in the official documentation.


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