[ntp:hackers] Re: magnitudes for ntpq variables

todd glassey todd.glassey at worldnet.att.net
Fri Mar 31 18:41:23 UTC 2006


Amen - VMS help was aswesom - I agree totally about access to help info too.

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Paul Vixie" <paul at vix.com>
To: "David J Taylor" <david-taylor at blueyonder.co.uk>
Cc: <hackers at lists.ntp.isc.org>; <mills at udel.edu>
Sent: Friday, March 31, 2006 9:13 AM
Subject: Re: [ntp:hackers] Re: magnitudes for ntpq variables


> the dominant OS vendors are apple and microsoft, and just as neither has
an
> interest in making it easy to share code between their platform and other
> platforms, neither has any interest in making it easy to share
documentation
> between their platform and other platforms.
>
> to understand why this matters, consider UNIX, among whose stated goals
was
> to make it easy to share code and documentation between itself and other
> platforms.  the result of UNIX's openness and cooperation is that it
stopped
> being a dominant platform.  it was out-competed by the proprietary folks.
>
> (note-- arguments saying that linux is the new UNIX and that linux is
somehow
> dominant would not be welcomed by me on this thread, since we already know
> that at least one person here doesn't want a UNIX-friendly format, and we
> also know that there are a bazillion incompatible linux-friendly formats.)
>
> for those of us who still work in 80-column terminal windows, PDF and HTML
> are too cumbersome.  i want to be able to conceive a question that
requires
> reference to the documentation, ask that question, view that answer, all
> without reaching for a mouse.  sort of like VMS "HELP" used to let me do.
> GNU "INFO" is almost adequate, though it wants to move my cursor around
and
> make me type a lot more than the "more" command would do.  HTML is barely
> tolerable, given the startup and shutdown costs of ascii-mode web
browsers.
>
> man pages are my ideal format.  everybody here will have their own ideal
> format.  all of them are right, all of them are wrong.  let's stop arguing
> about which one is best.
>
> todd made a suggestion which deserves a second listen.  write the docs in
a
> format that is transformable into all the various formats folks could want
> to read it in.  DocBook is one such.  note that DocBook is horrid, and
that
> the only things worse than DocBook are "everything else".  but there are
> tools to make DocBook into INFO, manpage, HTML, and PDF.  (just not VMS
HELP.)
>
> we have to de-couple "what we use to read it" and "what we use to write
it"
> or we're just not going to make useful progress.
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