HOWTO vs mini-HOWTO [was: Linux Doc Infrastructure]

[Morten Kjeldgaard <mok@imsb.au.dk>]

On Fri, 7 Jan 2000, Kim Lester wrote:

 
> >From what I've seen LDP and GDP are addressing an important part of
> getting a set of new docs up-to-date
> and mostly in some sort of format. What I see as the next step is
> unifying the strucutre.

A few months ago, I tried raising this discussion on the ldp-discuss
mailing list, but noone picked up the thread. I guess I didn't express
myself clearly enough.

I propose that the distinction between HOWTOs and mini-HOWTOs should be
abolished, because a grouping based on the sizes of the documents it is a
very arbitrary and non-intuitive distinction. In fact, some mini-HOWTOs
are longer than some HOWTOs. Approximately 2/3 of the mini-HOWTOs are
longer than the shortest HOWTOs!

Historically, HOWTOs were in LinuxDoc (SGML) format, and mini-HOWTOs were
not. But now, all mini-HOWTOs are also in LinuxDoc format.

A new way of grouping the documentation should be implemented, to make it
faster and easier to locate the document you need. I very much support
Kim's ideas:

> The hierarchy should be able to be cross refrernced in at least 3 ways
> (and also via
> a word search):
>         By title
>         By problem/concept/
>        By program|module|group name

(not more than 3 levels deep, please! :-))

/Morten

-- 
Morten Kjeldgaard   <mok@imsb.au.dk>             | Phone : +45 89 42 50 26
Institute of Molecular and Structural Biology    | Fax   : +45 86 12 31 78
Aarhus University                                | Home  : +45 86 18 81 80
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