From owner-freebsd-doc Fri Jul 12 11:45:36 1996 Return-Path: owner-doc Received: (from root@localhost) by freefall.freebsd.org (8.7.5/8.7.3) id LAA03972 for doc-outgoing; Fri, 12 Jul 1996 11:45:36 -0700 (PDT) Received: from gatekeeper.fsl.noaa.gov (gatekeeper.fsl.noaa.gov [137.75.131.181]) by freefall.freebsd.org (8.7.5/8.7.3) with ESMTP id LAA03967 for ; Fri, 12 Jul 1996 11:45:33 -0700 (PDT) Received: from emu.fsl.noaa.gov (kelly@emu.fsl.noaa.gov [137.75.60.32]) by gatekeeper.fsl.noaa.gov (8.7.5/8.7.3) with ESMTP id SAA07765; Fri, 12 Jul 1996 18:45:32 GMT Message-Id: <199607121845.SAA07765@gatekeeper.fsl.noaa.gov> Received: by emu.fsl.noaa.gov (1.40.112.4/16.2) id AA181547147; Fri, 12 Jul 1996 12:45:47 -0600 Date: Fri, 12 Jul 1996 12:45:47 -0600 From: Sean Kelly To: doug@sun1paztcn.wr.usgs.gov Cc: freebsd-doc@freebsd.org In-Reply-To: <9607121751.AA29491@sun1paztcn.wr.usgs.gov> (message from Doug Wellington on Fri, 12 Jul 1996 10:51:38 -0700) Subject: Re: Let's hack on the Handbook! ..my ideas... Sender: owner-doc@freebsd.org X-Loop: FreeBSD.org Precedence: bulk >>>>> "Doug" == Doug Wellington writes: Doug> Hi folks, I've been lurking around the net for a lot of Doug> years now (Yes, I remember BEFORE the web started dragging Doug> the whole net down!) Yep, the good ol' days ... there was just Usenet, email, and ftp. Gopher didn't even exist yet and archie/prospero was just in the planning stages. Doug> I like the idea of having one handbook for users (The Doug> FreeBSD User's Handbook), one for programmers (The FreeBSD Doug> Programmer's Handbook) and a separate one for system Doug> administrators (The FreeBSD System Administrator's Doug> Handbook). Sounds like a reasonable division, but is there enough material to support it? I really don't think so. Doug> In the current Handbook, there is a lot of good programming Doug> help, so I figure we should pull that all out and put it Doug> into a guide for everyone that wants to hit the development Doug> side. Huh? Are you looking at the same handbook? I don't see *any* programming help in the whole thing (looking at http://www.freebsd.org/handbook/handbook.html). Part 1 details installation and tells how to use man pages (adm, user); part 2 is all system administration (adm). Part 2 tells how to administrate networking (adm). Part 4 tells about a variety of things including sup, contributors, and kernel debugging. Now, kernel debugging might be programming help, but I usually consider it a combined advanced development/system admin topic, so let's score this section as (adm, user). The score: adm=4, user=2, prog=0. When I look at the elephantine bookshelves of HP/UX docs here at the lab, I see tons of material that fits in all three categories: Welcome to the Visual User Environment (user), Administering ARPA Services (adm), Introduction to Berkeley Sockets (prog), Using Floating-Point on PA/RISC (prog), The XDB Symbolic Debugger (prog), Using vi (user), etc. Sun manuals are similar. Our on FreeBSD handbook would need an introduction to Berkeley sockets, using floating point on the i386, etc., to merit a separate book on programming. James Raynard got us a good start with his tutorial on development (yay!). And if I had the time I'd be happy to write a chapter on RPC programming with FreeBSD. However, I think all that should be *low* priority. I don't know for sure, but I think most people who get FreeBSD for development already know what they're doing. And all the other people are using FreeBSD to provide Internet services. More important to me would be a part (or separate handbook) devoted to providing Internet services. Part 5: Internet Services Providing shell access DNS Configuring DNS Providing naming services World Wide Web Types of web servers Server configuration Proxy servers Tracking usage Aliased IP addresses Email Services Internet mail routing: sendmail Mail user services POP and similar protocols User mail agents Administering USENET Log file management ... That would also help make FreeBSD a better ``selling'' platform. Internet services are hot and we should capitalize on that. Doug> I'll extract the programmer's info and build the Doug> Programmer's Handbook, then start on the System Doug> Administrator's and User's books. Perhaps we use separate definitions for programmer's info ... where is this stuff?!? -- Sean Kelly NOAA Forecast Systems Laboratory kelly@fsl.noaa.gov Boulder Colorado USA http://www-sdd.fsl.noaa.gov/~kelly/