Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: version B 2.10.1 6/24/83; site utcs.UUCP Path: utzoo!utcs!clarke From: clarke@utcs.UUCP (Jim Clarke) Newsgroups: net.unix-wizards Subject: Re: AT&T and Unix Message-ID: <380@utcs.UUCP> Date: Tue, 22-Jan-85 12:59:02 EST Article-I.D.: utcs.380 Posted: Tue Jan 22 12:59:02 1985 Date-Received: Tue, 22-Jan-85 13:31:59 EST References: <7359@brl-tgr.ARPA> Organization: University of Toronto - General Purpose UNIX Lines: 21 Just to stick a totally different oar into these muddy waters: I'm a novice system administrator (six months' service) on a binary Xenix system (not the machine I'm writing from). I have no desire to change the system I'm running, at least not yet, but I do want to be able to understand it. What I keep finding is that the documentation is inadequate: it's OK for most simple problems at the user level, but for the kind of troubles I have as an administrator it looks mostly like a very well-written guide to the source. In other words, with this documentation *and* the source, I could probably figure out most of my troubles, but without the source I'm just frustrated. I'm lucky enough to be in a computer science department, so that as well as my little binary operation there are a few VAXes around with source, and there are a good many graduate students itching to help people like me. What would I do if I were all alone in Timbuctoo? I'm starting to wish for those yards of shelf filled with IBM manuals that used to fill me with horror when I visited computer centre offices. But we know what's wrong with that approach; what I'd really like to see would be *printed* copies of the source without on-line copies. Maybe micro- fiche copies should be sold -- for, say, several hundred dollars? Am I dreaming?