smart Digest, Vol 21, Issue 3

[Grant McWilliams]

>
>
> Message: 2
> Date: Wed, 9 May 2007 21:14:10 -0700
> From: linux_learner <linux.learner at gmail.com>
> Subject: Re: smart Digest, Vol 21, Issue 2
> To: smart at labix.org
> Message-ID:
>         <ae19ac280705092114h61af19c3vcb96f9dec9137b2d at mail.gmail.com>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1"
>
> Grant, I know your frustration. When I got involved, there was less
> documentation than there is now. I have done the documentation for smart.
> I
> took what Gustavo did and expanded on it.
> http://labix.org/smart/howtoUnfortunately, I don't know how to add
> pictures well with the wiki Gustavo
> uses. Before I started this, the smart config options were completely
> undocumented. http://labix.org/smart/config-options  I think I drove
> Gustavo
> and company nuts asking all the questions I did. I used this
> http://wiki.suselinuxsupport.de/wikka.php?wakka=HowtoSmartPackageManageras
> my rough draft for http://labix.org/smart/howto but as you can see, it was
> a
> lot easier for me to add screen shots to wikka.
>
> Now, personally, I think we should team up and work together. I have been
> wanting to compile a collection of errors, so that users can more easily
> see
> what an error is, what it means, and how to fix it. I have been wanting to
> add more examples, but I have been really sick lately. I am a newly
> diagnosed diabetic and have been having seizures as well. This makes it
> rather hard to keep going on the smart documentation. Also, everything is
> to
> scattered about. Like the errors. I'd have to scour the smart mailing
> lists,
> and internet forums and other mailing lists for errors and bug reports
> pertaining to smart. This is quite time consuming. Obviously, the smart
> mailing lists is the best place to start. But even that can be time
> consuming.
>
> Get back with me, and let me know what you think. I hope that you'll work
> with me, and improve on the documentation.
>
> On 5/9/07, Grant McWilliams <grantmasterflash at gmail.com> wrote:
> >
> > I hadn't thought of using Python because I don't know it as well and
> this
> > certain project needs to be
> > maintainable by the company I'm consulting for after I'm done and gone,
> > hence the shell script.
> >
> > I've spent quite a lot of time digging through what little docs there
> are
> > concerning smart and I've decided
> > as soon as I'm done with my current project I'm writing exhaustive Smart
> > documentation including examples
> > because the frustration level has been high. There just aren't many
> > examples on the net about this even though
> > it's getting used. I needed to install software across a secure channel
> > which brought me to smart because of the
> > mention in the doc about scp being a supported protocol. No examples, no
> > more data, nothing. I did get it to work
> > and like I said I'll be writing documentation even if it doesn't get
> used
> > officially because it needs to be done.
> >
> > I don't have the time to give back in the form of coding but
> documentation
> > I can find time for so that's my gift, wanted or not. :-)
> >
> > Grant
> >
>

I think you've done a great job of getting this started. The links you've
sent me have information in them that I missed as well as my colleagues that
are working on the project too. The fact that we've missed them means
there's more work to do. I agree that we
should work together. I'd like to have all documentation so easy to find and
search through that a baby could do it. Also there is info in
the FAQ that is buried and a howto might bring it to the surface. Digging
through a FAQ to try to figure out how do use an app (without a specific
purpose) is a lot of work. Reading an explanation of all the features is a
good format if you already know how the app works and you're just looking
for a specific feature. What I think needs to be done is for the current
docs to be cleaned up, made easier to find and howtos or a series of howtos
created that give real world examples of how to use smart. I too gathered
much of my information from the
Suse howtos. Thankfully Suse put out a crappy package manager thus making
smart much more popular. Had that load of crap they use worked in 10.1 I may
not have ever spent enough time with smart to switch to it. My current
project uses it because it can install via a secure
channel. I do think though that YUM is getting a lot of plugins made for it
that makes it tempting to go back to.

Grant
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