[Info-vax] Radical command line suggestion

[Bill Gunshannon]

In article <mehhe7$7id$1 at dont-email.me>,
	Stephen Hoffman <seaohveh at hoffmanlabs.invalid> writes:
> On 2015-03-20 15:42:27 +0000, Bill Gunshannon said:
> 
>> What about some of the experts here colaborating on something like this 
>> for VMS?...
> 
> Right idea, but several generations back in the presentation and 
> maintenance.  With images and diagrams yes, but — being printed — with 
> no multimedia.  

Well, that was the earliest edition I knew of :-).  Have been a number since.
That one had a CDROM included.  Today I would imagine a web link.  :-)

Of course, given the right permissions, one could always include an emulator
and a limited functionality, prebuilt VMS image for it to run so that people
with the book could actually try some of the stuff.

>                Traditional printed books also suffer from the delays 
> inherent in the publication and release cycle.   Getting a new version 
> of a book out — having a little familiarity with the topic — is slow.  
> Much slower than pressing a "publish" button.

Nothing says you can't do eBook.  3rd and 4th editions have eBook versions
(at least for Kindle).

> 
> Even when TIMA article access was limited to the AskQ web interface 
> that some folks here have probably seen, the TIMA article approach was 
> — and all multimedia limitations aside — much more able to add and 
> update contents.   Quickly.   Easily.  There was a whole lot more to 
> TIMA behind the scenes.  Much more than was ever visible to folks 
> outside of DEC.
> 
> In more recent years, organizations are now presenting content from 
> TIMA-like systems directly to users, either via the web or via 
> integrated support articles and data within the various tools and 
> clients.

Yeah, but some of us still prefer paper copies.  Why, you say?  Well,
as you already learned, no INTERNET access at home.  And then there
were a lot of places I used to work where you couldn't even bring a
cellphone (and they were a lot more limited then) in, much less a
computer with network access.  I don't think I have to tell you what
or where those places are.  :-)  And then, there are people, like me,
who still like to read a real book once in a while.

> 
> For a roughly-analogous example of presenting the content of many small 
> articles that see various updates, HP was offering their QuickSpecs 
> documentation via Evernote 
> <http://h71069.www7.hp.com/quickspecs/pdfs/Quickspecs_Evernote_User_Guide.pdf>, 
> for instance.
> 
> As for content, I've put ~1900 articles online, many of which are 
> related to OpenVMS.    Particularly as the support activity increases, 
> the VSI folks will inherently be accumulating recipes and articles.  
> These articles will be for internal use, at least initially.  What they 
> decide to do with that text and what tools they might decide to create 
> and/or use, we shall see.
> 
> VMS folks also aren't usually accustomed to seeing near-live updates 
> arriving.  Not anywhere near as often as the updates could or probably 
> eventually should, for that matter.

Someone mentioned MOOC here earlier.  There is probably nothing stopping
some of our experts from creating Online Courses about VMS.  As a matter
of fact, it might be very interesting to see how many people (and who)
sign up for them.  Might even find a major institution who would host it
for exactly that demographic data.  (Like Stanford who seem to be getting
into this MOOC stuff ful throttle!)

One thing is for sure.  If you hide your lamp under a bushel you can be
sure no one will ever know it is there.

bill

-- 
Bill Gunshannon          |  de-moc-ra-cy (di mok' ra see) n.  Three wolves
billg999 at cs.scranton.edu |  and a sheep voting on what's for dinner.
University of Scranton   |
Scranton, Pennsylvania   |         #include <std.disclaimer.h>