Re: Opinions on some Debian books?
On Sat, Mar 06, 2004 at 07:19:19PM +0800, Katipo wrote:
> Nick Jacobs wrote:
> >--- Paul E Condon <pecondon@peakpeak.com> wrote:
> >
> >
> >>1) Look at http://www.debian.org/doc/
> >>2) The competition at debian.org pretty much kills
> >>the dead tree book market, IMHO.
> >
> >
> >I agree with (1) but not with (2).
> >Firstly, I'd pay to get some of the material on
> >http://www.debian.org/doc/ in the form of a printed,
> >bound book; a book is more convenient to read and
> >tires the eyes less.
> >
> >Secondly, the printed-book market is competitive.
> >Write something unclear or badly organised, and your
> >book probably won't get published, or if it does, it
> >won't sell. That applies much less to free, on-line
> >documentation because there's always a shortage of it
> >- most programmers don't like to write documentation.
> >So the general standard of organisation and clarity
> >tends to be higher in printed books than on
> >http://www.debian.org/doc/. This is not to denigrate
> >the fine job that people have done on that resource,
> >of course; I'm just pointing out that the constraints
> >under which they work are different from those of the
> >printed book market.
> >
> >
> Also, when you want to find out why your PC/system is down, a book is
> much more useful than inaccessible on line docs.
> Regards,
>
> David.
>
Old computers that don't support the latest Windoze are still quite
adequate for access to the web. Find one in a friend's closet, or buy
one from a junk dealer. Install basic Woody. Use it in emergencies only.
--
Paul E Condon
pecondon@peakpeak.com
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