Re: HOWTO filenames

[David Lawyer <dave@lafn.org>]

On Tue, Dec 05, 2000 at 10:44:38PM -0200, Jorge Godoy wrote:
> On Tue, 5 Dec 2000, gferg@hoop.timonium.sgi.com wrote:
> > 
> > Are there any comments on this? I realize some bookmarks and links
> > might break...
> 
> I suggest removing the words "HOWTO" and "mini-HOWTO" from
> filenames. They are already present at the directory / place they are
> stored at LDP.

But if someone downloads just a few of them the "HOWTO" identifies
what they are.  For the directories that contain them on PCs,
shortening the names might permit more to display on the screen.  On
my PC they all end with -HOWTO.txt.gz.  The gz is important to make it
easy for the viewer (pager, editor, etc.) to know it needs
decompression.  txt is helpful too.  HOWTO is less important.  But
some entries are long like:
Unix-and-Internet-Fundamentals-HOWTO.txt.gz and not much would be
saved by removing the HOWTO.

IMO removing the "HOWTO" word has both advantages and disadvantages.
Ideally the ones for individual download would retain "HOWTO" while
the packages of HOWTOs for one directory wouldn't.  Thus each HOWTO
(in the same format) would have two names.  This might be confusing to
the public.  So IMO we shouldn't make a change unless it is
significantly advantageous, and I don't think this is.

> 
> I would suggest extending this rule to document titles, but in a
> reverse manner: add the word "HOWTO" (no minis) to document titles. It
> will help people who downloads them to know to what LDP category these
> documents belong to. 

Do you mean the <title> in the doc ?  The one's that I've seen already
contain HOWTO in the title.  I just checked and there are a few that
have no HOWTO (or HOW-TO or Howto, etc.) in the title.

			David Lawyer


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