Re: HOWTO vs mini-HOWTO [was: Linux Doc Infrastructure]

[Kim Lester <kim@dfusion.com.au>]

Morten Kjeldgaard wrote:
> 
> On Tue, 11 Jan 2000, Guylhem Aznar wrote:
> 
> > Aboloshing the distrinction is a good idea, but it would confuse
> > people.
> 
> I don't think it would confuse people, but even so, it would only be those
> people who are already familiar with the historical distinction. The
> overwhelming number of people who _need_ the LDP are newcomers to Linux
> that just want to find the information they need quickly.

  Exactly! Agree 110%
  Just try explaining why there are HOWTOs and minis to a newbie without
  finding an example document that contradicts ones point.

> The key to good documentation is that there are several paths into it. Not
> everyone thinks the same. _Organization_ is the key to good documentation,
> and the HOWTO/mini-HOWTO distinction is _not_ good organization.

  Agree again.
  Everyone has different ideas of what to look under, in an index.
  Don't know about you but often when I look in a (real) technical book
  index it takes several attempts to find what an item has been listed 
  under. Often I think the author's/editor's choice is really obscure.
  Eg PPP might be listed under "PPP", "Peer-to-peer", "Networking" or
even
 "IP", "Protocols". If you're looking in Windoze help it could be listed
  under _anything_ eg "Connecting two machines" or "Dialing your ISP"
  It all depends on the book/author's perspective. For any reasonably
  sized doucmentation set there has to be multiple paths.
  
regards
	Kim Lester


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