Re: Poll: personal convenience vs. global improvement of docs
On Sun, May 28, 2006 at 03:16:59PM +0200, Shehu Dikko wrote:
> Gary Johnson <garyjohn@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> > Making mutt easier for newbies to use and to understand is a great
> > idea, but changing variable and function names is not the way to do
> > it. If you really want to help new users, add a section to the
> > manual where variables are grouped functionally along the lines of
> > your ideas for renaming them, and improve the rest of the manual by
> > making the explanations more clear and with better cross-references.
>
> First of all, it's a pleasant surprise to learn that mutt is
> attracting new users. How did we know this? I was under the impression
> that newbies went for gui-based programs. Have I missed a similar poll
> of newbies done to discover what specific difficulties they've faced?
> Just what is driving this review? That said, anyone interested enough to
> try mutt should be willing to read and understand the documentation.
> What Gary says here should not be overlooked. Variable names in of
> themselves mean nothing if they are not properly documented and
> understood.
>
Surely 'new user' is not the same as 'newbie'.
--
Chris Green (chrisisbd@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx)