From owner-freebsd-stable@FreeBSD.ORG Fri Nov 2 11:29:16 2007 Return-Path: Delivered-To: stable@freebsd.org Received: from mx1.freebsd.org (mx1.freebsd.org [IPv6:2001:4f8:fff6::34]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 7114416A418 for ; Fri, 2 Nov 2007 11:29:16 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from xfb52@dial.pipex.com) Received: from blaster.systems.pipex.net (blaster.systems.pipex.net [62.241.163.7]) by mx1.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 0A3E513C4B3 for ; Fri, 2 Nov 2007 11:29:15 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from xfb52@dial.pipex.com) Received: from [192.168.23.2] (62-31-10-181.cable.ubr05.edin.blueyonder.co.uk [62.31.10.181]) by blaster.systems.pipex.net (Postfix) with ESMTP id D9152E000666; Fri, 2 Nov 2007 11:28:44 +0000 (GMT) Message-ID: <472B09EB.5000106@dial.pipex.com> Date: Fri, 02 Nov 2007 11:28:43 +0000 From: Alex Zbyslaw User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (X11; U; FreeBSD i386; en-GB; rv:1.7.13) Gecko/20061205 X-Accept-Language: en MIME-Version: 1.0 To: stable@freebsd.org References: <4724BAD9.7000400@charter.net> <20071028164152.GA7516@eos.sc1.parodius.com> <4724BEB3.5080905@charter.net> <20071029132447.GA2658@kobe.laptop> <4727063E.7060107@dial.pipex.com> <20071031143923.GA1580@over-yonder.net> <20071031190830.GJ82954@cicely12.cicely.de> <20071031193045.GD1580@over-yonder.net> <20071101124341.GL82954@cicely12.cicely.de> <20071101125909.GA52150@over-yonder.net> In-Reply-To: <20071101125909.GA52150@over-yonder.net> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Cc: Subject: Re: /usr/share/man/man8/MAKEDEV.8 X-BeenThere: freebsd-stable@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.5 Precedence: list List-Id: Production branch of FreeBSD source code List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Fri, 02 Nov 2007 11:29:16 -0000 Matthew D. Fuller wrote: >On Thu, Nov 01, 2007 at 01:43:41PM +0100 I heard the voice of >Bernd Walter, and lo! it spake thus: > >>Show me the positives that outweights the negatives and I'm on your >>side. >> > >Why do you think we're on different sides to begin with? I've not >advocated removing catman capability, or denied that different >situations have different needs, or that those needs may include >catman, or for that matter said anything at all applicable to tiny >environments or appliance building. > As the author of the original statement creating this little furore, I don't think I said anything of the kind either! It's kind of depressing that a throwaway comment at the end of an email gets turned into a straw man argument that even I could have knocked down, but no-one has bothered to comment on the, to my mind, clear logic error in man/catman which allows the wrong manual page to get displayed in the first place. When the cat-ed man page concept was invented (when even the slowest machine cited here would have looked like science fiction) the notion that an upgrade process could install a manual page older than a pre-existing cat-ed version would have been unthinkable. With FreeBSD as it is now, it clearly isn't unthinkable since two experienced upgraders already had their own personal steps in the upgrade process to avoid the issue. At the very least, it would seem like adding that step to /usr/src/UPDATING and the handbook would be in order, but fixes to man and catman could make this issue happening a near impossibility. (A scheme using something like md5 sums could make it even more improbable, but hardly seems worth the effort). In addition, considering an *option* to simply not have cat-ed manual pages (for people with machines fast enough to just not care, or who have machines where you just don't read man pages often enough to care) does not seem out of order. An option. Not behaving like Microsoft. Not discriminating against anyone. On Thu, Nov 01, 2007 at 01:43:41PM +0100 Bernd Walter said: >My point was against retirement, which was mentioned by Alex. No, it was not. I said: >Of course, with modern systems where nroff-ing a man page takes >negligible time and system resources, it could also be argued that >cat-ed man pages should be a thing of the past > "with modern systems where nroff-ing a man page takes negligible time and system resources". All your arguments have been about systems which do not, by any stretch, meet that very specific criterion, and, for which, I therefore advocated nothing at all. If you had wanted a clarification, you only had to ask. jonathan michaels wrote: >sorry for my noise, i am not complaining rather asking for a bit of >thinkings and for some tolerance fro people who still use "old" >machines .. I'm sorry that you've seen intolerance, but I assure you that none was intended. I think you are reading far more in to what was said, than was actually said. --Alex