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

[deCube.net | Danny Wilson]

On 21 nov. 2015, at 01:59, Mathnerd314 <mathnerd314.gph at gmail.com> wrote:

> 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.

He said you can’t learn Spanish from just a dictionary.  It may help learn of course.


> 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 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.

So... not wrong after all!  A "dictionary alone" was not enough, he had to be taught by a native.

https://www.xkcd.com/386/   :-)



> The applicability of said anecdote to NixOS is left as an exercise for the reader.
> 
> -- Mathnerd314
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