On Fri, 9 Apr 1999 16:34:05 -0700, S. Whitmore wrote:
Great! Yes, a FAQ would be very useful.
>From my own experience, since I also asked this question recently, I
>don't consider the manual to be a useful reference for finding the
>answer to that. The problem is, reading the entire manual front to
>back (so to speak) is simply not feasible -- I have tons of things
I disagree. Skimming the manual takes roughly 2 hours, if you have some
idea of SQL. You rapidly discover which chapter has C API, Syntax (and
how that chapter is structured), and the chapter on Access Control. You
also notice that there are chapters about changes and tuning. There are
also searchable mailing list archives.
A message to the list is sent to about 2000 people. If 10% of them
spend 30 seconds each to look at the message, you've taken 1.7 hours of
other people's time.
Thus, IMHO, unless someone thinks that their time is more valuable than
that of others, common decency dictates that s/he at least make a
passing attempt at consulting the documentation. If not, buying
commercial support is an alternative.
Having said that, I think that anyone organizing the docs in a
faster/more easily accessible manner is a great guy, deserving praise
for donating his/her time to the common good ;-)
[PS: personal views - I am not affiliated/speaking for TCX et al.]
-Sincerely, Fred
(Frederik Lindberg, Infectious Diseases, WashU, St. Louis, MO, USA)
