Re: "RTFM'ing": readily accessible user documentation?

["Soren Andersen" <soren_andersen at speedymail dot org>]

On 17 Jan 2002 at 7:54, Robert Collins wrote:


> I'm going to ignore your newbie-style clueslessness in the body of your
> email, on the assumption that you will follow this advice.

I wish you wouldn't, but its up to you.

You are missing the whole point. A newbie isn't going to go and subscribe 
to cygwin-apps: wouldn't be encouraged to (based on what she reads on the 
"way in") and wouldn't foresee the need to. I am offering (this whole 
group) a (slightly synthesized) newbie viewpoint on how Cygwin (setup) 
looks to a newbie. I submit that it is more and more self-evident that you 
(and probably not you alone) *cannot* shift cognitive gears enough to 
imagine what the newbie experience of cygwin-setup is, and clearly don't 
see any need to try to do so.

I believe that by composing the messages I have, I may be representing 
(even if in a very imperfect and partial way) what untold numbers of other 
readers might have *thought* of posting here, but never did.

Sometimes, no matter how stubbornly one might wish that the behavior (and I 
mean primarily the internal intellectual behavior: how people think [& 
feel]) of people would fit one's preconceived grid of assumptions and 
preferences, it just doesn't. The overly big and vague general phrase 
widely used to refer to this, in our culture, is "human nature." Not trying 
to take human nature into account at all is a pitfall for those who have 
desires to accomplish anything at all in the world.

I myself am clumsy with words and often make mistakes that strike onlookers 
as lack of tact or diplomacy, but I submit that I at least know about the 
underlying and fundamental importance of human nature and at least struggle 
continuously with gaining a keener understanding of what it is.

I also know that there may be a very considerable investment of a personal 
nature in `setup' as it has become what what it is right now. What would be 
unfortunate (although certainly I can live with it, personally) would be if 
that personal investment made by developers of Cygwin caused a general 
intractable deafness to user feedback which is intended constructively.

   Best regards,
      Soren Andersen


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