Subject: Linux-Activists - DOC Channel digest. 94-1-6-7:22
From: "Linux Activists" <[email-masked]>
To: "Linux-Activists" <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 6 Feb 1994 09:46:38 +0200

Topics:
	 Re: LDP documentation and the FSF

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From: [email-masked] (Olaf Kirch)
Subject: Re: LDP documentation and the FSF
Date: Sat, 5 Feb 1994 20:10:19 +0200

[Oops, didn't recognize that the mailing list was on the Cc: line...
 Here we go once more:]

Matt hath spoken:
> general. The major idea that got across was the fact that Linux really
> is a "GNU" system---it's built up from GNU software, (excepting of course
... X11, the mail, news, and TCP/IP software, just to name a few.
Although GNU utils make up a major part of "Linux" utilities, I
would like to see both projects cooperate, rather than view one
as part of the other. But maybe I'm just misinterpreting your
interpretation of what RMS said :-)

That said, I definitely like the idea of targetting the LDP stuff at
a not-only-Linux audience. Since releasig the NAG last summer,
I was surprised to get quite a number of comments from people who
said they were using the NAG to troubleshoot their network. Rich Braun
even told me he gave it to a rookie admin to learn something about
networking.
So, it _is_ already used in non-Linux environments. Therefore, I've had
an eye on it that I keep Linuxisms from being cluttered all over the book,
and to concentrate them in a few locations instead. This works 
well most of the time.

However, there's one problem about my book, and other administration-
related books like Lars' SAG probably as well: scale. When writing the
NAG, I had in mind the audience at which we originally targeted it,
namely the former-DOS addict turned Unix admin. That is, the environments
and examples discussed tend to lean much more toward the typical PC
environment than the fifteen workstation-LAN you find at average
Unix installations.

Of course, I could go back and discuss medium-scale examples as well,
but I'm afraid this would make it balloon to the size of O'Reilly's
X11 books. Besides, I've got enough work to get it ready for another
edition, and I don't want ot rip it apart again right now. So, in the
foreseeable future, there won't be any change in the NAG's underlying
concept. Maybe later.

> In order to sync up with the rest of the GNU docs, it would be nice
> to have texinfo. Now, I have the same qualms about texinfo as everyone
...
> Olaf's texify, LaTeX->texinfo processor) will get us at least halfway
> there, but not all the way.
I have made up an experimental macro package for LoTeX that roughly
does what texify used to do. It basically uses a \node command
that takes the node tag, the node level as a number, and the explanatory
text that appears on the right hand side of the menu. Menus are generated
whenever the node level number indicates that the following node
is further ``downward'' in the node tree. If anyone's interested,
I'll put together some directions on how to use it, and upload it.

Nevertheless, I am not sure if anyone would really want to have
the LDP docs in texinfo. I don't know if manuals are really
suitable for turning into hypertext stuff. Info is good for
reference-type documentation, but not for tutorials. Just compare
what the NAG feels like in texinfo (there should be an old version
of it lying around on ftp.stolaf.edu) to what it feels like when
browsing the DVI file online. A tutorial has lots of context;
often the main thread of dicussion continues across several
subsections; a hypertext document needs to have the context set
up at each node.

Of course, you can do these things with \if-constructs in your
document, or have a spearate hypertext-only version. But I don't
know if this really avoids the problem.

Olaf
-- 
Olaf Kirch		[email-masked]		    Darmstadt, FRG

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