Re: hello seul-dev-help!

[Red Hat Linux User <twoducks@globalserve.net>]

> Hi,
> 	I am the new guy around here. I am a Debian and Redhat 
> user/administrator at brawleyonline.com. I recently became aware 
> of the SEUL project and would like to help. My experience is in 
> installing and running networks (NT, Novell NetWare, UNIX/Linux).
> I have been directed to the seul-dev-help as I also have experience 
> writing - Que published two books I co-authored and 5 I technical 
> edited. 
> 	Now, what can I do to help?
> 
> Tony Wasson
> wasson@brawleyonline.com
> 
I have tried responding once, but due to some email problems
(reconfiguration problems) it did not send properly. I will now
try again.

Welcome!

It is good to have you on board. Since you are new here, and it has been
a while since I did something like this, I will give you a brief dump
on what has been going on. Basically there are several things which
are considered (so far) to be part of the help groups tasks:

1. Help browser/viewer:
   o Coding is progressing
   o Newest version will always be in CVS, which will hopefully be
     accessible soon.
   o Soon the newest docs will be available from web site.
   o Older docs may be viewed at:
      http://www.globalserve.net/~twoducks/seul-dev-help/
      the version there is pretty old. I will try to build a new binary
      load later, but need to get some further enhancements in first.
      Once cvs is available you will always be able to get the newest
      version.

2. SEUL help document format:
   o Some work is occurring off line by someone in terms of the help
     format. Once it has been further developed it will be posted for
     comment.

3. Collecting existing docs:
   o Some docs have been looked at (mostly HOWTO's and man pages.
   o Much more work should be spent here.
   o Collect and document all existing that can be found.

4. Help document directory layout:
   o This is where the documents (both ours and others) will be kept for
     easy viewing by the browser.
   o Not much work has been done to make this intuitive. Just some general
     ideas.

5. Write application docs:
   o Documents need to be written about the applications and utilities
     which will be included in SEUL and have not been documented at all
     or well.
   o Identifying the packages of utilities so that the help may be
     packaged for it.

6. Writing task docs.
   o Task documentation is like howto's but for smaller, more focussed
     topics.
   o Identifying tasks which are involved in a users system and the
     actual writing need to be done.
   o Identifying packages and what task help should go with which
     packages needs to be done.

Soon I hope to encapsulate this all in a TASK document (unless someone
else wants to :)

I will send further messages with old docs and stuff further explaining
some of these ideas. More information is on the web page (even
the old one!)

It would be great if some dialog starts to happen in this group on these
topics. They could sure afford to be fleshed out some and more ideas
thrown in.

I should be able to respond quicker to mail after today. I finally got
my mail system working properly (using fetchmail, mh and sendmail instead
of netscape.)

Ken Duck
twoducks@globalserve.net