On Thu, 4 Sep 2014 16:40:40 -0600 "John Calcote" <john.calcote@xxxxxxxxx> wrote: > > -----Original Message----- > > From: autoconf-bounces+john.calcote=gmail.com@xxxxxxx > > [mailto:autoconf-bounces+john.calcote=gmail.com@xxxxxxx] On Behalf > > Of Shawn H Corey > > Sent: Thursday, September 04, 2014 4:05 PM > > To: autoconf > > Subject: Re: A Closer Look at GNU AutoTools > > > ... > > That's because you have forgotten what's it like to be faced with > thousands > > of pages of technical manuals about something you know nothing > > about and all you want to do is a simple task. > > If you're looking for a tutorial that walks you through the small set > of tasks that you personally need to perform, you're unlikely to find > one unless you write it. This is just common sense. While there are > many task-specific tutorials out there, the fact is, the Autotools > are a general set of build tools designed to handle a million > permutations of build requirements. The manuals are necessarily > complete and generic. No, it's not common sense. Cookbooks have been written for other tools, programming languages, and operating systems. > > > You mean those ASCII diagrams that should be inside <pre></pre> > > tags? And you don't think that's crappy? > > Are they in some way unreadable? The point is to convey information. > If they accomplish that task, how could they be better? If the > definition of crappy is "they're not polished eye candy", well then I > guess they're crappy, but for my own uses they suffice. They're unreadable in proportionally=space fonts. The web isn't stuck with just monospaced ones. > > That said, however, please feel free to submit updated versions of > these graphics that have a bit more polish to them. Please don't > forget to submit the necessary changes to the documentation build > system to make these graphics be properly incorporated into the > document, and also don't forget to ensure the final pictures (if > generated from source) are in a format that will be acceptable to the > wide community of autotools users - probably at least PNG, but don't > take my word for it - survey the list and ensure the chosen format is > acceptable. See, it's not as easy as it looks - ASCII is probably a > reasonable compromise. "If you want to help, blah. Blah, blah, blah,..." No wonder the documentation doesn't improve: it's too complicated to do even a simple change. -- Don't stop where the ink does. Shawn _______________________________________________ Autoconf mailing list Autoconf@xxxxxxx https://lists.gnu.org/mailman/listinfo/autoconf
