Re: Proposed: gnome-nettool

[Shaun McCance <shaunm gnome org>]

On Mon, 2004-07-19 at 20:04 +1000, Jeff Waugh wrote:
> (This is a thread-starter for the final module discussion before the release
> team reports back with a summary and proposal, which will aim to represent
> the consensus of the community. Please be kind to authors, and start totally
> new threads if there's a reason to shift off-topic.)
> 
> Description:
> 
>   GNOME Nettool is an application that provides GUI access to many
>   networking command line tools, like ping, traceroute, netstat, finger,
>   whois, ifconfig.
> 
> Proposal:
> 
>   http://mail.gnome.org/archives/desktop-devel-list/2004-June/msg00010.html

(This is my analysis of the documentation, wearing my GDP FL hat.  This
is not my opinion of the program or its appropriateness for inclusion in
the Gnome desktop.)

GNOME Nettool has no documentation.  Ideally, a tool like this should
have a complete section on each tool, with background material on what
that tool actually does.  I do *not* want to see a section like this:


3.2 Port Scan

Click the Port Scan tab to get the Port Scan tabbed section.  To port
scan a machine, enter the DNS or IP address of the machine in the text
field labelled 'Network address' and click the Scan button.  The results
of the port scan will be displayed in the text area below.


Really, documenting this well means explaining each of the tools, what
they do, and why you would want to use them.  This can be a sizeable
task, and will almost certainly require some cooperation from people
knowledgeable.

--
Shaun