Time for a Network Handbook?

[Tom Rhodes]

On Mon, 6 Dec 2004 19:20:18 +0000
Nik Clayton <nik at freebsd.org> wrote:

> On Sun, Dec 05, 2004 at 01:28:59PM -0600, Eric Anderson wrote:
> > Nik Clayton wrote:
> > >Anybody got any strong feelings about moving the existing "Network
> > >Communication" <part> out of the Handbook, and using it to seed a new
> > >FreeBSD Networking Handbook?
> > 
> > What's the reasoning behind it?  I like it in the Handbook personally - 
> > it fits with the rest of the book.
> 
> Partly to move closer (as others have said) to having a collection of
> Handbooks.  But mainly because I was glancing over the existing content
> and it struck me as odd that mail gets its own chapter while most of the
> other network services have to sit in together.
> 
> So the natural thing to do is to give each network service its own
> chapter.  Which would increase the size of the Handbook somewhat.  So
> slicing them out in to a separate networking handbook could be
> appropriate.
> 
> I also think that giving each service a 'standard' structure:
> 
>     Synopsis
>     Terminology
>     Client
>     Server
> 
> will lend some needed uniformity to the content, and make it easier for
> someone to start documenting additional services (IMAP?  POP3?  DAV? ...).
> 
> While I think about it I'm beginning to think that Terminology
> ("Glossary"?) might make sense as a 'standard' <sect1> in all the other
> chapters too, in the same way that Synopsis is.

This sounds like a good idea.  It also shows how much documentation
we actually have (and lack).

-- 
Tom Rhodes