From: David Abrahams Date: Thu, 23 Apr 2009 21:26:34 GMT Subject: Re: [doc] User Manual Suggestion Message-ID: In-Reply-To: <20090423201636.GD3056@coredump.intra.peff.net> On Apr 23, 2009, at 4:16 PM, Jeff King wrote: > On Thu, Apr 23, 2009 at 01:37:05PM -0500, Michael Witten wrote: > >> Everyone talks about "before one has the conceptual foundation >> necessary to understand". Well, here's an idea: The git documentation >> should start with the concepts! >> >> Why don't the docs start out defining blobs and trees and the object >> database and references into that database? The reason everything is >> so confusing is that the understanding is brushed under the tutorial >> rug. People need to learn how to think before they can effectively >> learn to start doing. > > I agree with you, but not everyone does (and you can find prior > debates > in the list archives). The user-manual is pretty "top down". And that's a problem because so many things are badly named. It also leaves out lots of top > There are > some "bottom-up" resources available, but I haven't seen one pointed > to > as "definitive". I've been pointed at: 1. http://eagain.net/articles/git-for-computer-scientists 2. http://www.newartisans.com/2008/04/git-from-the-bottom-up.html which, IMO, should be read in that order. I've just sent John Wiegley a huge pile of editorial commentary on #2, which I think could improve things. But that said, "laying conceptual foundation" doesn't imply bottom- up! In fact, I don't think the first one is particularly bottom-up -- David Abrahams BoostPro Computing http://boostpro.com