Re: HOWTO vs mini-HOWTO [was: Linux Doc Infrastructure]

[Kim Lester <kim dfusion com au>]

Guylhem Aznar wrote:
> 
> On Mon, Jan 10, 2000 at 06:56:28PM +0100, Morten Kjeldgaard wrote:
> > I propose that the distinction between HOWTOs and mini-HOWTOs should be
> > abolished, because a grouping based on the sizes of the documents it is a
 [... snip ...]

> Aboloshing the distrinction is a good idea, but it would confuse people. 
> mini HOWTOs are "mini" since they focus on a specific topic

IMHO removing the distincition it won't confuse anyone.
How is IP-Masquerade (mini) more specific thatn IPX-Howto (HOWTO).
Similarly Assembler is probably less important to many than LILO etc.
Whilst I see the original purpose of HOWTOs vs minis (which isn't bad)
the line
has long since blurred. It is now more a matter of personal perspective.

One thing you could do is something like stick to a single dir and use a
stricter naming scheme.
Eg: Networking  might be the main (overview) howto and if someone has an
IP
specific topic it could be named: "Networking-IP-Masquerade" similaarly
an IP topic would be "Networking-IPX-blah"

Whilst the nasmes would be longer the topic areas would be clearer.

Of course this whole issue goes away once we agree on an Open Doc Env.
categorisation process (ode-discuss@oswg.org),
long file names like Networking-IP-Masquerade
are not really an issue.


regards

	Kim