another Re: writing spk howto (?) (again)

[David Bruzos]

I am sending this one again, because of the same reason as the other one... 
It was too large the first time...


> Hello again:
> I have read everyone's posts and I think that everyone has and makes very 
> valid points.  I don't plan to start writing the howto until I gather some 
> more info and test some things my self.
>
> Yes, writing technical docs is hard and time consuming, but I will give it 
> a try...  I think it will be alright.
>
> I have been thinking about the document and how it should be focused.  I 
> like the distribution specific approach while maintaining enough 
> generality to be useful in other distributions.  For example, writing the 
> howto for FC2 and including some necessary information for other distros, 
> but not cluttering the document with references to too many unrelated 
> topics.  The reason for my approach is that I am a newbie (as I said 
> before)  and I have fresh in my mind all the many frustrating hours 
> searching through tons of general documentation that I could not 
> understand nor use.  So, I want to safe the next newbie some time and give 
> them a set of simple instructions that I know will work for sure.  Advance 
> users can read the FC2 instructions and apply them to whatever they use, 
> but beginners can't go the other way.
>
> Another problem is that I don't have experience with other distributions, 
> so writing something about them would be pure speculation.  What can be 
> done is generate a set of documents that would cover the main distros, but 
> that would require someone other than me to work on them.  Again, I think 
> the distro centric approach with the necessary additional info about other 
> distros is probably the best compromise between generality and 
> practicality...
>
> Thank everyone so much for responding so wonderfully to my post yesterday. 
> If I don't respond to everyone's posts, I am sorry, but I would be saying 
> the same stuff over and over...  I read every post though, so everyone's 
> help is great.
>
> Thomas, I will be checking out your Speakup howto and hopefully 
> contributing the software speech to it...
> Oh, Janina's FC2 installation howto is great and yes, maybe the URL should 
> be a little more user friendly!
>
> David
>
>
>
>
> ----- Original Message ----- 
> From: "Janina Sajka" <janina at rednote.net>
> To: <david at bruzos.org>; "Speakup is a screen review system for Linux." 
> <speakup at braille.uwo.ca>
> Sent: Tuesday, November 02, 2004 8:18 AM
> Subject: Re: writing spk howto (?)
>
>
>> Absolutely, you should do a Speakup with Software Speech HOWTO. The
>> community needs one desparately, and there aren't enough of us document
>> writers to go around.
>>
>> In all honesty, I must tell you that writing a clear, concise, and
>> complete HOWTO is hard work. I don't say this to discourage you, but to
>> point out that there's a reason why more HOWTOs aren't just out there to
>> be plucked off the net. My advice is to start simple, and Speakup With
>> Software Speech sounds to me like about the right task.
>>
>> I will tell you that I attempted to write a HOWTO for Speakup on Linux
>> together with a professional tech writer from IBM. When the tech writer
>> left IBM this project stalled--after over 6 months of work between us.
>> That's when I took the pieces that I actually knew something about and
>> created the Installation HOWTO for the Speakup Modified Fedora Core.
>>
>> Which reminds me, writing a HOWTO is only part of the job. The rest of
>> the job is maintaining the HOWTO which means making new versions when
>> new facts change the advice people need to have.
>>
>>
>>