Re: Linux is not for consumers!
See bottom post in re. top-post.
On Thu, Dec 11, 2003 at 12:07:23PM -0600, Michael Martinell wrote:
> That's why the people doing the documentation should be the power-user who
> is not familiar with every intricate detail, and has had to struggle and
> learn the system. That is the person who can usually explain things in a
> matter that does not bore the general populace to tears. After all, if
> you're talking about getting a typical, home-user, windows-user to use
> Linux, you had better be talking at a "For Dummies" level. Which isn't
> anything against the windows person, it's just that Linux is allot more in
> touch with the hardware side than most users would want to be.
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Colin Watson [mailto:cjwatson@debian.org]
> Sent: Thursday, December 11, 2003 12:02 PM
> To: debian-user@lists.debian.org
> Subject: Re: Linux is not for consumers!
>
> On Thu, Dec 11, 2003 at 05:17:28PM +0000, Richard Kimber wrote:
> > On Thu, 11 Dec 2003 09:07:16 -0500
> > "Robert L. Harris" <Robert.L.Harris@rdlg.net> wrote:
> > > You're right. Too many consumers are too dumb for for Linux,
> > > especially Debian. It requires more than a room tempature IQ and
> > > the willingness to use it.
> >
> > This may be true of some; but even reasonably intelligent users with quite
> > a lot of experience can come unstuck in those areas with which they are
> > not familiar, simply because the documentation is often so poor.
>
> In many cases it will remain poor until people report what they found
> confusing about it - it's sometimes hard to document something you wrote
> in a way that somebody unfamiliar with it can understand.
>
Documenting software is like writing a good text book. The author must get
in touch with his "inner Dummy" and speak to his needs. Some geeks have this
ability, but many do not. The commercial "For Dummies" book style is not
particularly good, IMHO. I prefer O'Reilly books.
--
Paul E Condon
pecondon@peakpeak.com
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