[Nix-dev] Real documentation, aka "Let's kill the wiki"

[Mathnerd314]

On Wed, Nov 18, 2015 at 7:04 AM, Hajo Möller <dasjoe at gmail.com> wrote:

> "Documentation should teach, not tell."
> As Rok said, handing somebody who is learning a new language a
> dictionary would not help them learn.
>

This is wrong. You can do fine with a dictionary and a few months:
http://www.theguardian.com/education/2012/nov/09/learn-language-in-three-months
"When I went online in search of Lingala resources, the only textbook I
could find was a US Foreign Service Institute handbook printed in 1963 –
when central Africa <http://www.theguardian.com/world/africa> was still a
front of the cold war – and a scanned copy of a 1,109-word Lingala-English
dictionary."

The key here is that he did not have to learn everything at once; he split
it up into many small chunks (vocabulary, in his case) that could be
focused on independently.

His most obvious failing once he went to Africa was that he hadn't
practiced listening or making complete sentences; some extra hours with a
native brought it to an acceptable level.

The applicability of said anecdote to NixOS is left as an exercise for the
reader.

-- Mathnerd314
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