Re: "cvs [commit aborted]: cannot commit files as 'root'"

[Greg A. Woods]

[ On Monday, July 9, 2001 at 09:21:58 (-0500), Daniel Beckham wrote: ]
> Subject: Re: "cvs [commit aborted]: cannot commit files as 'root'"
>
> On one side there are the people who will never read the manual, but will
> expect the mailing list, forums, et. al. to answer every little question
> they have whether it's "I can't get my webserver to run cgi scripts" or "how
> do I import a new project" or "I don't understand my algebra homework".

Yup!  :-)

> On the other side... the manual just plain sucks.  It's confusing, poorly
> organized, badly written, and as you pointed out.. it's sorely lacking a
> full list of error messages.  In short.. it needs to be rewritten very
> badly.  I have a hard time being upset at someone who doesn't RTFM the cvs
> manual because it's painful to read.

I think it's more an issue of how people learn to use reference
documentation.  The CVS manual should be an excellent reference to all
the details of CVS configuration and operation.

However I don't think the CVS manual itself should go too far to being a
lazy luser's guide to avoiding learning anything.  Yes a separate
beginners guide might be useful, as might more wide-ranging "how-to"
documentation, but maybe that's not the business of the CVS developers
and maintainers, but rather for third party writers to fulfill.  Anybody
got a "CVS for Dummies" in the works?  ;-)

Now as to whether the current CVS manual is a suitable and sufficient
reference, well that's an entirely separate question!  ;-)  All I'll say
about that is that it's many many orders of magnitude better than what
came before it!

-- 
                                                        Greg A. Woods

+1 416 218-0098      VE3TCP      <address@hidden>     <address@hidden>
Planix, Inc. <address@hidden>;   Secrets of the Weird <address@hidden>