Re: DocBook Walkthrough?

[David Lawyer <dave@lafn.org>]

On Tue, May 16, 2000 at 10:32:32PM -0400, pac1@tiac.net wrote:
> 
> There are 6 levels of expertise related to things a Linux person may 
> try to do.
> 
> 1. Unaware of availability or alternatives
> 2. Initiate - Has made a choice but lacks knowledge of how to proceed to
> implement the choice successfully
> 3.  Novice - Has Found the Fine Manual and read parts of it that seem relevant
> and has not yet attempted to use it

This all depends on the "Fine Manual".  For example I installed the
exim (sendmail clone) on my PC but only read about 1% of the manual
that comes with exim.  Most of the features I don't need or use.  A
similar situation holds for many other manuals.  In some cases
installing a package will result in a default configuration that works
fine and there's no need to read the manual at all.

At the opposite extreme is where on has read the entire manual but due
to special circumstance (hardware incompatibilities, bugs, etc.) it
still doesn't work.  The manual often can't cover all cases.

> 4. Trainee - Has Read most of the Fine Manual, and tried it and succeeded at
> least once.
> 5. Expert  - Has read and understood the Fine Manual, done it at least once and
> could do it again the same way or with common variations without occasional use
> of documentation
> 6. Master - knows it cold.  has little use for documentation because the Fine
> manual and all other documentation is essentially reproduced in wetware)
> 
Does the Master level include trouble-shooting under unusual
circumstances?  For example what at first glance may appear as a
software problem could be due to defective hardware.  Defective
hardware may work OK with some software but not with other software.
Thus an expert in the software aspects may not be able to diagnose a
problem if it is caused by defective hardware.

> For a given task, a person may fall into any one of these 6 expertise
> categories, and for each level, a certain subset of the total available
> documentation (TAD) is appropriate.

It's not this simple.  It depends on ones knowledge and background.  A
person in category 1. may be ready for an advanced presentation if
they understand say topics like flow control and error detection while
someone in the top category for a certain task might not know about
this.

			David Lawyer


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