Re: SEUL: Is it too soon for me to comment?

[Paul Anderson <paul@geeky1.ebtech.net>]

On Tue, 6 Jan 1998, David Cary wrote:

> 
> Actually, I'm pretty fluent in vi, but I am of the opinion that nobody
> should ever have to learn vi again. We have mice now, people !
> 
And I avoid using mine at every occasion possible.  Mice are a pain, to
type this e-mail I've moved my hands half the distance it would take for
me to even start netscape with a mouse!

> And I'd like to agree with whoever it was that said "GNU info" was like
> attacking the user with a hatchet. I still have no idea how to use it; I
> still rely on "man" pages even though they say things like "This is all a
> lie; the real scoop is in the Info documentation" (slightly exaggerated).
> 
I downloaded TkInfo, and it works a lot better...  It defies imagination
how someone could concoct such a cryptic interface...

> I fail to see why documentation isn't just put into HTML and let us run
> Lynx on it, or any other browser. If HTML can store the sum total of human
> knowledge, then it should be almost good enough for Linux documentation.
>
As far as typesetting languages go, HTML is braindead.  Compare HTML to
TeX, LaTeX, Lout, groff, postscript, and you realize that HTML is that
visual basic of text formatting languages.  And for printing, -*GAG*- is
it UGLY!  There's no way a web page can beat a nice dvi.

> 
> Interesting concept, installing off the 'net. That way we can guarantee
> that everyone gets the latest version.
> 
What if there's someone without a modem?

> Perhaps we *should* assume everyone *will* be doing email from their SEUL
> box, and therefore will have *some* sort of 'net connection, at least
> during the install (must dock the portable, etc).
> 
Some people just don't have net access.  It would be a Bad Thing(tm) to
require it to install.  IIRC, RH5 takes an entire DAY to do an FTP
install!  

> 
> I plan on learning Perl "Real Soon Now", so it would be nice if we
> remembered miscellaneous "small" projects like this
>
Perl has a very unique relationship to the shell...  For instance, you can
use backquotes in a variable like this:

UNAME=`uname -a`

And it'll execute uname -a and put it's output into the UNAME variable.
Most intriguing, IMHO.

> 
> Are we going to *assume* X-windows ?
>
You don't want to do that, Bad Idea.  RedHat does that, and consequently I
don't use their admin tools.

> With enough SEUL users, whoever gets to the question first and answers it wins.
> (Maybe some central server sends the question out, round-robin, to everone
> who left the "I volunteer to answer questions" set in the default "on"
> position, say  sending out a question to the next person on the list every
> 5 minutes until *someone* answers).
> 
They won't like that.  Remember, this is a distribution targeted at the
moron-newbie crowd - those that don't have a clue, and don't want a clue.

> Well, it looks like I'm re-inventing Usenet News all over again.
> 
Which is something it could use.  Spam and crossposting morons has made it
useless for anything serious.

> 
> This seems orthogonal to the general SEUL goal.
> 
Why is it that whenever I read 'orthogonal' I think of dental fixtures???

> 
> It would be nice if we could avoid having to make changes to *everything*.
> If we're lucky, we might be able to get away with just writing a new set-up
> program(s) to make it more hands-free, but when new .rpm red hat packages
> come out, still be able to use them automatically.
> 
We're going to write new install code no matter what, BUT the basic system
RPMs will have to be our domain.  

> I.e, a few persuasive emails to convince the owners of "problem
> applications" to make them easier to use, a few web pages to *show* new
> programmers the Right Way to make set up go smoothly, rather than writing
> everything ourselves.
> 
Managing programmers is like herding cats.  If you TELL him to make it
more user friendly, he probably wouldn't just because you wheren't willing
to help.  I know I wouldn't.

> 
> Hey ! <looks offended> I wrote a program once !
> It was, uh... I can't say much about it, because ... it's a trade secret !
> Yeah ! That's the ticket !
> 
> ;->
> 
I have my doubts that a number of people on this list have never
programmed, and don't understand how programming works.  It shows:)  TTYL!


                            ---
                        Paul Anderson
		   paul @ geeky1.ebtech.net
    Author of Star Spek(a tongue in cheek pun on Star trek)
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I hear it's hilarious.               Maintainer of the Tips-HOWTO.
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