On 28 Nov 2004 06:23:26 -0000, "Bob Squanto" <squanto@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
wrote:
>Though I have used Linux since 1997 there is still tech jargon I do not grasp. This is causing some consternation on configuration of X.
>
It is an *extremely* common problem: Most of us were NOT born knowing
technical jargon, whether computer-speak or legalese or something else
(like tractor-pull scoring), yet the in-crowd for each assumes as
much, or apparently forgot that it never knew. Actually thirty years
in aerospace software taught me that most of the 'techies' do NOT know
and assumed or made up something that sounds good. ("Well, that's what
Bill told me five years ago!") Even a software manager has to expend a
great deal of effort to drag the meanings out of the practitioners,
and then at least half the time they are incorrect and *obviously* so.
In a basically volunteer set-up, like Linux, forget it! You have no
club with which to persuade the tech writer that the answer is NOT in
the HOWTO files. (Fatwah will not help!)
Basically I mess with something until it works (kind of) and then move
on to the next problem. However I research frequently and try to read
more advanced technical ''documentation'. USENET complaint letters are
a good place to browse. Get over the fact that a lot of the techies
are total arrogant assholes whose communication skills put earthworms
to shame and reap whatever ye may. Persistence pays off, but the
pay-off is NOT quick. Good luck!
PS: Reading the 'source code' is normally rather like reading the
'DaVinci Code'. Most programmers can't write comments either. "If it
was hard to program, it should be hard to read."
HTH
George D. Freeman IV
the softrat
"Honi soit qui mal y pense."
mailto:softrat@xxxxxxxxx
--
"All misinformation is true .... from a certain point of view"
-- the Jedi Handbook
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