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