On Thu 20 Aug 2015 at 14:35:00 -0700, Gary Roach wrote: > On 08/20/2015 09:39 AM, Brian wrote: > >On Thu 20 Aug 2015 at 16:25:20 +0100, Lisi Reisz wrote: > > > >>On Thursday 20 August 2015 15:30:04 Chris Bannister wrote: > >>>To be fair, there are some Debian.readme which make no sense to an end > >>>user. I've seen some Debian.readme files which talk about about how to > >>>compile the program. Hello? Isn't Debian a "binary" distribution. > >>Yes. So someone - you? me? - needs to write them. I didn't say it was > >>perfect. But gift horses etc. If you can't do it, and I can't do it, find > >>a > >>volunteer who can. I usually find the README files useless, or nearly. > >There are some excellent README.Debian files. The ones you find lacking > >in some way are the ones you should file bugs about with suggested > >improvements. It is a relatively easy and painless way to put something > >into Debian without being a developer or maintainer. Looking around for > >someone else to start the ball rolling is a surefire way of getting > >nothing done. > > > >>But programmers are never going to be good technical authors. How many > >>good > >>technical authors do you know who are also good programmers? > >The statement is far too sweeping. The answer to your question is "lots". > > > > > This side thread seems to have taken on a life of it's own. So I guess i'll > throw my two cents in.
Sorry. I didn't mean to hijack the thread. > > I both programmed and tech wrote - that ok english? - before retirement. So,a "tech wrote"? I like it! > I should be a good candidate for helping out the documentation cause. But > there is a problem especially if you are talking about the README files. If > I knew enough to correct the file I wouldn't be reading it in the first > place. As for howto's and such, I really don't know enough to comment. Once > I get an application up and running I've usually forgotten what I did and > would have to back engineer to figure things out. By that time I'm so sick > of the whole process that I run like hell. You have a good point. I've taken to writing down what I do *as I do it* - not afterwards. The trouble with "afterwards" is that you do forget some detail because you have generally been working fast and tried a few things. Even notes can be a problem if you do not record all the things you are supposedly familiar with, such as permissions.
