I've been listening with interest to the comments on ADSM documentation.
While ADSM is a complex product, I think that installation and use of
the package on the client side can be vastly improved.  We have expended
great effort here to try to improve the client packaging, only to be
continually thwarted each time a new fix-level comes out.

It's frustrating.

Some examples.

With version 2, IBM has decided that all options for all platforms
  should be documented in one place.  I'm sure that someone, somewhere,
  thought this was a great thing to do.  For one thing, I can see that
  it might make IBM's life a bit easier in keeping this document
  updated.  But from a user's point of view, it really stinks.  First,
  you need to understand that most computer users are bigots when it
  comes to operating system environments.  Mac users hate PCs, PC users
  hate Macs, etc, etc.  Can you imagine how frustrating it must be for
  a naive user to wade through reams of documentation for options that
  do not apply to them?

It has become very difficult to pre-configure a sample DSM.OPT or
  ADSM Preferences file.  These little black boxes that IBM uses to
  help the installation process along get in the way more than they
  help.  If you want to help, IBM, let us get inside your little black
  boxes and customize the defaults for our environment.  I'm specifically
  talking about the Mac and PC installer programs.

Either write some usable documentation for naive users that walks them
  through the installation process, or stop changing your black boxes.
  Each time you change your installation utilities, you get in the way
  of folks who are trying to document how to use these things.  Change is
  good once in awhile, to improve things, but keep it to a minimum.

The mindset for the user documentation seems to be targeted for the site
  administrator, not for the end user.  At our site, we expect our users
  to install and use ADSM, not us.  One example I already mentioned -
  putting all the documentation for all options on all platforms into one
  file is fine for a site-wide administrator, but not for an end user.

I actually like the idea of moving the installation documentation out of
  the User's Guides.  It was just in the way, because it tells you how to
  install from a diskette.  Let's face it, installing from diskettes is
  very painful for large installations.  It's a lot of work to reproduce
  and distribute diskettes to hundreds/thousands of users.  It is much
  easier to distribute code via a network.  FTP is virtually ubiquitous,
  at least for sites that use TCP/IP widely.  It would be really great to
  see IBM come up with a nicer way to install ADSM client code over the
  network.

Please make it possible for us to print off copies of the User's Guides
  ourselves, by providing PostScript for them.  DynaText is a step in the
  right direction (it allows you to generate postscript suitable for
  printing), but it falls short in that there are formatting problems,
  no table of contents, no index, and all of the internal references do
  not use page numbers.  What I want is to be able to print a duplicate
  of what your printed manuals look like.

Having re-read what I just wrote, it sounds too harsh.  I >know< that the
ADSM Publications folks are good folks.  They are trying hard, and they
have done some really innovative stuff.  I applaud their efforts to
make docs available online, and via the internet.

..Paul

Paul Zarnowski                     Phone:   607/255-4757
Cornell Information Technologies   Fax:     607/255-6523
Cornell University                 US Mail: 315 CCC, Ithaca, NY 14853-2601