TFM meeting results (HA!) (fwd)

Grant Heinrich (leroy@nospam.socs.uts.EDU.AU)
Thu, 28 Apr 1994 13:11:14 +1000 (EST)

It appears this didn't get out.

G

---------- Forwarded message ----------
Date: Tue, 26 Apr 1994 16:27:31 +1000 (EST)
From: Grant Heinrich <leroy@nospam.socs.uts.edu.au>
To: tfl@nospam.socs.uts.edu.au, progsoc@nospam.socs.uts.edu.au
Subject: TFM meeting results (HA!)

TFM meeting 26 April:

1. What is TFM for?

-- Previously, making money. Now we have that, its purpose
is less obvious. There is a need for TFM, since students
can't get its information elsewhere.

-- Audience: principally first years, at SoCS. (As we have
money, there seems little point in going to enormous effort
to write and sell a TFM suitable for other unis. Finding
volunteers to sell the thing here was difficult enough...)
First years want to learn any basics not covered by the UNIX
workshop.

Audience two: everyone else. Typically, "Everyone else"
want to improve their UNIX knowledge / efficiency.

There is actually a reason for this management style bullshit.
TFMs 93 and 94 are badly organised because they try to speak
to both audiences simultaneously.

2. What will be included in 95?

-- A quick reference / FAQ, pointing to later sections, man pages,
WWW help, useful utilities / applications.

-- Xmosaic

-- perl

-- Basic TeX (I assume 2e). There will be new printers installed
later this year that could print TeX. It's easier to
typeset PE assignments in TeX than WP or Word.

-- More UNIX. Not specifically shell programming, but extra
information on tools. Some information currently in
"Erotic Fantasy" will be moved into the earlier UNIX section.

3. How will TFM be organised?

A distinction must be made between necessary information (which
everyone should read) and optional additions. Currently,
networking appears to be optional, where it is (almost) equally as
important as UNIX.

4. How will the work be organised?

It is impossible to have a single person (the "editor")
responsible for proofreading and organising TFM: it
is TOO BIG. Also, the editor spends a lot of time sorting
out what needs to be done next: not only the writing,
but arranging printing, etc, and starting stupid arguments.

Two suggestions have been made; I think they work well together:

4a. Divide TFM into sections (possibly of a predecided length),
and the writers into teams. A single person is responsible for
"editing" each section.

4b. Work in groups of two: each writer has a partner. You
proofread your partners work and vice versa.

This appears over-organised, until you consider what has happened
previously. The current TFM was mostly written over six weeks
at the beginning of 1993 first semester. People wrote about
what they were interested in initially; then, when omissions
became obvious, several people were drafted into writing additional
material. In the end, several sections which should have tied
nicely together didn't, only the first third was proofread, and
we had no clear idea of what would be included until the final
printout was made.

Basically, a structure would make it easier to read. A work
structure would mean jobs are more likely to be done, or less
likely to be forgotten.

5. What happens now?

We plan to draft the new sections before end May. Once they are
ready, an overall structure can be debated. By then also, OTHER
PEOPLE should have commented on these points. A TFM list is
being created as we speak; please restrict TFM-related email to it.

To join, mail listproc@nospam.socs with no subject line. The message
body should say:

subscribe TFL the_name_I_want_to_be_called

SEND ALL TFM RELATED MAIL TO TFL@nospam.SOCS FROM NOW! (It should
be going. Tell Sbg about any problems.)

Particularly, if you want to write something tell us.

6. To do:

Sbg: write perl.

Jimmy: re-write UNIX.

Chris Fraser: something on WWW. (Surprise! Let us know if
this is impossible...)

Leroy: I will be asking first / second years what they'd
want in an FAQ. (Email with suggestions: leroy@nospam.socs.)

-- Grant Heinrich
Your mouth is made up but your mind is undone / Accidents will happen ...