From owner-freebsd-hackers Wed Jul 31 12:42:33 1996 Return-Path: owner-hackers Received: (from root@localhost) by freefall.freebsd.org (8.7.5/8.7.3) id MAA20093 for hackers-outgoing; Wed, 31 Jul 1996 12:42:33 -0700 (PDT) Received: from rover.village.org (rover.village.org [204.144.255.49]) by freefall.freebsd.org (8.7.5/8.7.3) with ESMTP id MAA20086 for ; Wed, 31 Jul 1996 12:42:24 -0700 (PDT) Received: from rover.village.org (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by rover.village.org (8.7.5/8.6.6) with ESMTP id NAA12892; Wed, 31 Jul 1996 13:41:52 -0600 (MDT) Message-Id: <199607311941.NAA12892@rover.village.org> To: "Jordan K. Hubbard" Cc: hackers@freebsd.org Subject: Re: Manpages 9 In-reply-to: Your message of Tue, 30 Jul 1996 23:48:08 PDT Date: Wed, 31 Jul 1996 13:41:52 -0600 From: Warner Losh Sender: owner-hackers@freebsd.org X-Loop: FreeBSD.org Precedence: bulk : You're right, that doesn't work at all. Hmmmm. Any suggestions, : anyone? :-) Yes, but aren't use of manacles, spiked chambers and branding irons against the Geneva conventions? Your best bet: Pay a tech writer (or find some sucker to volunteer) to fly to each of the hacker's home towns. Buy them a beer or three (or sushi or whatever their poison is) and get them babbling about the interfaces, possibly in their native language. Record this on tape, and take notes. Then, have that person massage the results into man pages. Take those man pages and pass them back by the original authors, or people that would know for corrections. It is much easier to correct something than it is to write it from scratch (unless it is so wrong that it has to be completely rewritten). Warner