On Mon, Dec 18, 2006 at 05:24:10PM +0100, Damnshock wrote:
> > If not I can figure it out but asking is probably faster.
>
> You should do the other way:
>
> 1) RTFM
> 2) SEARCH INTERNET
> 3) ASK!!!
While I agree with this idea in many contexts, I'd say this kind of
thinking is totally wrong for Mutt (or any complicated user-oriented
software, for that matter). RTFM is a good answer for sysadmins and
programmers, but really isn't a good answer for typical users. The
problem is this:
- Mutt is extremely powerful, and thus extremely complicated
- Users may be various degrees of technical or non-technical, and
may not understand a lot of the manual
- The manual is 133 pages long (8730 lines / 66 lines per page, as
of the build of Mutt in CVS I installed 2 weeks ago or so)
- Probably about 50% of what Mutt can do is only explained, in
somewhat terse language, in the reference section of the manual.
In such sections, it is not always obvious that a particular
variable is the one you're looking for, or even why a particular
variable is useful at all.
- The manual does not have a good index for finding the answers to
"how do I do X" kinds of questions (a table of contents is not the
same as an index, and can not very well function like one).
- If you generally know how to use Mutt, but have one simple "How do
I do X" question, it is extremely inefficient to read all 133
pages of the manual to find what you're looking for, and even if
you do, you might miss it, or not realize that the item you're
looking at is the one you want, for various reasons.
It is totally non-productive for a user who mostly knows how to use
Mutt to spend hours reading through the whole manual, then more hours
searching the web, only to have to rely on the mailing list to get an
answer to their question... Asking the question on the mailing list
first will usually get them an answer in 5 minutes, and hurts no
one...
This mailing list is here for a reason -- so that people who are
willing to answer the questions of those who have questions can do so.
The bottom line is, if you don't feel like answering someone's
question, no one is forcing you to. You can just ignore it or hit the
delete key. But really, unless you are willing to take the time to
write out all the needed sections of the manual to explain how to do
all the things that people can do / want to do with mutt in detail, in
easy-to-search, well indexed sections (or unless the question really
is one of the obvious / easy-to-search ones which is covered in a
great deal of detail), then really, I think an answer of RTFM is
inappropriate on this list.
Not everyone wants to be an expert on everything Mutt does, and no one
should have to if they don't want/need to; but they still have the
right to have their questions answered by people who are willing to do
it.
--
Derek D. Martin http://www.pizzashack.org/ GPG Key ID: 0xDFBEAD02
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