RE: BE MORE SIMPLE!!!!
I'm the guy that asked which package had the HOWTOs. I know it seemed like
a dumb question, but I did try searching on "HOWTO" in both dselect and on
the Debian web site, and came up with nothing. And I started paging through
the 2700+ packages shown in dselect, but gave up after an hour or so of
that. Maybe it would help if the package was named "doc-howto" or something
useful like that, or if it was installed as part of the "Complete Developer
Workstation" profile I selected when installing Debian.
I agree that it would be helpful for more questions on this list to be
answered with instructions on how to find the information. But I see too
many messages on this list (and throughout the Linux community) saying
"people are stupid" or "people are lazy" when they ask questions that have
"obvious" answers.
I think I'm a pretty smart and resourceful guy, and the whole reason I'm
using Linux is to learn about it. If I was lazy, I would have just asked
"How do I set up sound on my machine", which is what I really wanted to
know. But, instead, I looked for the HOWTOs on my machine, couldn't find
them, searched for them in dselect and on the Debian website, and finally
decided it would be easier to ask a simple question than to install every
Debian package hoping to magically wind up with HOWTOs installed.
I know that there are some people who emerge from the womb knowing how to
configure device drivers and write perl scripts. But the rest of us stupid
people need some help once in a while, and find it discouraging to be called
lazy or stupid when we do ask. We're not looking to have anything spoon-fed
to us--we just need a little guidance when we hit a brick wall.
- Kris
-----Original Message-----
From: Eric Gillespie, Jr. [mailto:epgilles@olemiss.edu]
Sent: Friday, June 11, 1999 3:01 AM
To: debian-user@lists.debian.org
Subject: Re: BE MORE SIMPLE!!!!
On Thu, Jun 10, 1999 at 09:31:54AM +0200,
Urban Gabor <urban@lhsystems.hu> wrote:
> no disrespect, but M$ makes you forget thinking. (Cf the subscription! :-)
> )
>
> I would suggest an other install description with step-by-step texts of
> what to do. And redesinging Debian web site can help a lot.
>
It is not Wintendo that makes people forget how to think, it is something
else. This is a problem with people in general, not just in relation to
computers. No one wants to think, because they're used to having things
spoon-fed to them. That's what "push" content was all about, people have to
be kept glued to the TVs, we can't have them going back to reading,
learning,
and thinking.
We should not encourage this process. I see so many questions on this list
that shouldn't be answered. Instead, the user should be told how to use
man pages, info pages, etc. For example, someone asked if there was a
package
containing the Howtos. Instead of telling him the name of the package, he
should have been told how to grep the Contents file, that way he can find
things on his own instead of asking the list every time. Remember, catch
a man a fish and you feed him that day, teach the man to fish, and he'll
never starve again.
--
Eric Gillespie, Jr. <*> epg@pobox.com
Don't you try to out-weird me! I get stranger things
than you free with my breakfast cereal!
--Zaphod Beeblebrox
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