[ic] advise on getting started with Interchange

[Jess Van Tassell]

After lurking on the group for several months, and messing around with a test
installation of Interchange 4.8.5, I've come to the conclusion that this is 
truly
a great piece of software. Kudos to all the developers and contributors. I 
admire
how far they've brought this product, and how well they've maintained it's 
power
and flexibility, and especially it's open source. There are still 
shortcomings,
especially in the documentation, but I'll think many will agree...most users
and implementors of Interchange find most of the shortcomings are in
themselves.

Getting to the point, I'd like to throw this question out to people like 
Mike Heins,
Ed La France, Kevin Walsh, John Beima, cfm@maine.com, Racke, who have
either developed or mastered this software. (please excuse me for leaving 
people
out, I am just naming the most helpful and prolific individuals on the 
mailing list
off the top of my head.)

What does a newbie need to understand and learn to be able to use and customize
Interchange for themselves? The existing documentation speaks to a certain 
level
of expertise, what expertise is that, and how does one build oneself up to 
that?
Obvoiusly, some of it is Linux/BSD administration, Apache and HTML, and most
people who attempt to integrate Interchange with their business have this
background. What is the magic ingredient for a beginner to stir into this 
soup to
make ITL start making sense?

It would be great if the IC site said specifically on it "Experience in 
Linux, Apache
and Perl are necessary to do any modifications of this product." It is rather
misleading, after all, it gives detailed explanations of using CVS, then skips
to giving Perl-like ASP calls in the ITL documentation. Why hold someone's
hand to install, then leave them in the dust for implementation?

It would be to the advantage of Interchange to have a few hundred more people
who can configure and make complex modifications to an Interchange
store to meet the needs of businesses. I am asking now, how do I get there?

Thank you for reading this far,
-Jess