Hi all,

Be a newbie is very hard; do not have anybody around to help you when you’re a
newbie is worse.

I do not like to say (or write) that, but I’m a self made man. I mean I learn
English alone (my teachers were first: The Beatles, The Rolling Stones and some
others, second: Marvel Comic Group and National Periodical comics); I learn
computing stuff alone (no teacher at all for my Apple //c learning, some people
at Apple France for my Macintosh learning).

When I lost my "newbie" status, my angry about how difficult it was (and how
easier it could be with better documention) is so high that I remember many (if
not most) of the steps I had to go to understand.

Don’t get me wrong: I do not said or mean _people in this list_ do not share
enough information or  write bad documentation and so on... I just try to tells
you how it is difficult for a baby to walk (versus everybody else around him who
walks). Of course, once you walk, it is very easy to do it. Same thing applies
for each thing you have to learn. The major difference is that it is easier to
learn when we are babies, children that when we became adult (and consentant
:-o) ).

But things are not so dark; we must just have to want to stop for some times
(minutes or hours depending on the subject) and ask ourselves what was
show-stoppers when we were newbies; if we recall something, then we "just" have
to take a bit of time to write the steps to go ahead (I mean write the steps to
have the solution and go beyond that show-stopper). Another solution is to ask
newbies on the list to send their recent troubles to a special address, then
after some days add a special documentation (tips for newbies); last solution is
(once more to take sometimes to do it) to start a fresh installation from
scratch to a new machine and on a new hard disk; then note anything we have to
do (to change to the default values) to be able to install, boot and at last run
a piece of software.

Sorry, I was a bit long, but there is so much years I want to install and run
some *ix OS / software (I buy MkLinux, then try NetBSD, buy Debian, go back to
BSD and actually I'm not able to use an AZERTY keyboard nor launch and run e
single application _BUT_ I’m able to boot on NetBSD “Thanks to this list”)

Emile Schwarz,
Mougins,
France

I use a computer (Data Products) since 1980, then buy an Apple //c in 1985,
works at Apple France between 1988-1993 and is seeking (desesperately) for a job
since 1993. (I wrote a book on GSBasic, technical articles for programming Apple
II, user manuals at Apple France, etc.) [not so newbie, isn’t it ?]

> Bob earlier wrote:
The problem, as you noted, is that getting started puts one on the steep 
end of the learning curve right at the start.  However, once you get past 
that point things start to appear to be "obvious" very fast, and even the 
newest users soon quickly forget all the little steps they took to get to 
where they are.  That makes it difficult to write good documentation from 
the "newbie" point of view.  I think what we really need is to encourage 
some of our newest users, like yourself, to try to help out with the 
introductory documentation.  Your struggles are still very fresh in your 
mind and your comments and additions to the installation documentation 
would be very helpful for those who will surely be following you.