Re: Venting about docs

Art S. Kagel wrote: > Since this is shaping up to be a slow posting day, I want to take the > opportunity to vent. > > For years Informix had award winning documentation and, while it took me > a while to get used to them when they first showed up in the OL4.01 or > OL5 docs, the railroad syntax diagrams were actually easy to read and > follow. The original PDFs, whether you like PDFs or not (and I do), were > easy enough to navigate with hot links in expected places. So, why were > the docs for IDS 9.40 and IDS 10.00 changed to those hairy pseudo > railroad diagrams with the footnote pointers to get to hot links? The > PDF files are now VERY difficult to navigate and the changes did not > make the HTML versions any better. > > I want my old docs back! Just my opinion. > > Anyone else got one on this topic? It's got to be better than "Is DB2 > dead?" or whatever that thread has morphed into. > > Art S. Kagel I totally agree with you. I'd love to move my customer to 10.00 but I fear the day when I must browse those books... Besides being a PITA to use they're even much uglier :)

Fernando Nunes wrote: > Art S. Kagel wrote: > >> Since this is shaping up to be a slow posting day, I want to take the >> opportunity to vent. >> >> For years Informix had award winning documentation and, while it took >> me a while to get used to them when they first showed up in the OL4.01 >> or OL5 docs, the railroad syntax diagrams were actually easy to read >> and follow. The original PDFs, whether you like PDFs or not (and I >> do), were easy enough to navigate with hot links in expected places. >> So, why were the docs for IDS 9.40 and IDS 10.00 changed to those >> hairy pseudo railroad diagrams with the footnote pointers to get to >> hot links? The PDF files are now VERY difficult to navigate and the >> changes did not make the HTML versions any better. >> >> I want my old docs back! Just my opinion. >> >> Anyone else got one on this topic? It's got to be better than "Is DB2 >> dead?" or whatever that thread has morphed into. >> >> Art S. Kagel > > > I totally agree with you. > I'd love to move my customer to 10.00 but I fear the day when I must > browse those books... Besides being a PITA to use they're even much > uglier :) If it's any consolation, I think the Tech Pubs (ID - Information Development) people would agree - and the absence of the index letters at the top of the index pages is a nuisance too. However, the reason for the change is so that the manuals can be handled by automatic systems for the visually impaired - accessibility is the jargon usually used. The railroad diagrams can, apparently, be handled better than the much finer ones that used to be in the Informix manuals. IBM does a lot of work with the US federal government, and such things are important to contracts with it. -- Jonathan Leffler #include <disclaimer.h> Email: jleffler@earthlink.net, jleffler@us.ibm.com Guardian of DBD::Informix v2005.01 -- http://dbi.perl.org/