[texhax] Bilbliography/behaviour problem

[Uwe Lück]

At 15:58 08.11.05, Martin Schröder wrote:
>On 2005-11-04 08:26:32 +0100, Uwe Lück wrote:
> > If one takes the time, a diagnosis seems to be available by
>
>If you have that time to diagnose mails, please do so, but don't
>expect others to follow you.
>Mails which don't follow
>http://www.catb.org/~esr/faqs/smart-questions.html should be
>pointed there (and to the FAQ) and ignored till they do. We need
>to educate people.

Thanks for the link. I agree ... somewhat halfway.
I hope the section on `How to answer ...' is recognized.
Must of the rest is too general for here -- i.e., stealing time again
(yet I liked to read it). And my point was that
Zak _did_ obey guidelines of this kind
-- as much as could expected.
A different problem is that he didn't answer.
And I suggested that this may have been due to the
the style of the replies he has got. Yet I don't read
comp.text.tex.

I would support that new texhax subscribers are greeted
with a similar page. What I find most annoying are
subject lines like `a question'.

> > I have experienced situations where requiring "a minimal example"
> > was much more than could be expected from the user (and where I
>
>We all have

Nice to learn, at least not be alone.

>but Zak hasn't even tried.

OK -- at least he hasn't told us about what he obtained.
The minimal file would approximately simply have been:
   \documentclass{<INSERT>}
   \begin{document}
   \cite{str98}
   \bibliographystyle{<INSERT>}
   \bibliography{zthesis}
   \end{document}

Yet we see here that we need to know the .bbl
or even the .bst in this special case.
And this again hints to the fact that
it is very difficult to find/declare/apply a _general_
_strict_ procedure for diagnosing and resolving
problems.

Some fun: I wouldn't ask to submit _all possibly
relevant_ files -- remember some several MB
submission including biography here.

Best,
   Uwe.