On Mon, Aug 23, 2010 at 04:32:03PM -0400, Bill Nottingham wrote:
> So, I'm honestly asking: what are the odds that these few
things are the
> only improvements that cause a disruptive change to user interaction? I
> don't think it's unreasonable to wonder if there are other changes which
> fit this category.
My concern with this line of thinking is that you're asking us to quantify
the unknown unknown, and define a time period of testing which is
'long enough' for us to catch all the unknown unknowns. This seems
impractical, in as much as it doesn't give us any clear criteria to define
success with.
I guess what I'm getting at is that we need careful end-user release note
documentation at the alpha testing stage showing what's known by the
developers to have a new interface or semantics. Some of that is in the FAQ
(How do I change a runlevel? Turns out, by "isolating" a target which
defines that runlevel.) but some of it is not -- things like "noauto now
means auto" should have been in there. And a FAQ format is not exactly
what's needed.
Writing this isn't necessarily Lennart's job. But someone needs to do it,
and if it's there sooner rather than later, it'll be a better document and
issues with design and intent can be addressed.
--
Matthew Miller <mattdm(a)mattdm.org>
Senior Systems Architect -- Instructional & Research Computing Services
Harvard School of Engineering & Applied Sciences