Asking for Help? You callthat asking for free help (for free software)? [was: Documentation? You call that Documentation?]

[Kurt Pfeifle]

> You guys are the piss-poorest documentation writers in the history of
> computation.

You guy must probably be very frustrated right now. This happens to all of us from time to time, and I sympathize with you.

I admit, the CUPS documentation about quotas is amongst the lesser-documented features.

However, I think that CUPS is amongst the best and most completely documented open source projects out there, and I really appreciate how close in time to adding a new feature the respective adding to the documentation happens. You can follow that process in nearly real time by looking at http://www.cups.org/newsgroups.php?gcups.commit+T (or even subscribing to that newsgroup).

> The purpose of documentation is to inform others how to
> use your product.  But if you don't know how to communicate your ideas
> you are incapable of communication.

Even when you are very frustrated -- if you allow your current mood to take possession of you and insult the ones you address when you are asking for help on a topic (for the first time!) in a public forum, you are mimimizing your chances to get a helpful response. And do you really think that your own capabilities to communicate do show their best shape here?

> As a case in point, printers.conf
> lists the following description:
>
> "KLimit number
>     Specifies the job-k-limit value for the printer."

As a case in point, may I ask you what your real problem is (apart from that you not understand the printers.conf description of "KLimit")? Do you want to achieve some sort of print quotas with the help of CUPS? Did you see an error message in CUPS or in your OS that mentions "quota"?

What sort of OS are you running? Which version of CUPS is installed there?

> Are you kidding?  I don't know what a KLimit is.  After reading your
> definition, I STILL don't know what a KLimit is.  It's the same as
> writing "Frammis Valve:  The valve on the frammis."  Well Duh!  Now it's
> clear to you what a frammis is, right?

:-)   No.   :-)

If you want to learn more about how the print quota support for CUPS works, you may find this (external) documentation helpful:

   http://printing.kde.org/documentation/tutorials/quotas.php

(which was written about 5 years ago). Let me know if this helps you understand better what you are looking for.

If not, what is still unclear?

Would it help you if you could see a few different, practical examples for each commandline option in CUPS, and for each configuration file (along an explanation in non-techie language about what they are supposed to achieve)?


> Do us all a favor and hire someone who isn't as dazzled by his own
> brilliance and who is capable of conveying an idea, okay?

Are you yourself up for hire? Can you point me to some examples of your own documentation work?

BTW, do you think it is OK to ask somebody else to spend his money for hiring manpower so that you can get even more Free software for free, even more free support and even free documentation?

> Of course in my case, I still need to find someone who can explain why I
> get "quota limit reached" whenever I try to print and why creating a
> printer on the web interface (and saving it) fails to create a printer.

Well, if you promise to do all your future "venting" in private, and to cooperate calmly if we ask you questions about your system and ask you to make changes to it for testing, you may even be lucky and find these someones here.

> Naturally, you haven't addressed that little gem either, and I don't
> suppose you will.

Let's see...   :-)