Date: Fri, 3 Nov 2000 08:55:55 -0800 From: Gary Kline <kline@tera.com> To: Mike Meyer <mwm@mired.org> Cc: Gary Kline <kline@tera.com>, questions@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: beginners with bsd Message-ID: <20001103085555.A14336@athena.sea.tera.com> In-Reply-To: <14850.46407.660250.699148@guru.mired.org>; from Mike Meyer on Fri, Nov 03, 2000 at 06:53:27AM -0600 References: <5878289@toto.iv> <14850.46407.660250.699148@guru.mired.org>
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On Fri, Nov 03, 2000 at 06:53:27AM -0600, Mike Meyer wrote: > Gary Kline <kline@tera.com> types: > > I'll throw in my dime's worth and suggest that every `info' > > page be turned into a man-style page with hyperlinks. If > > hyperlinks (and space) been available 25 years ago, every > > manual entry would've had links. Another think the man > > pages would've had is examples. The reason man pages were > > so terse was that disk space was extremely costly. > > Gee, and I thought it was because programmers hated writing > documentation. I know I do. :-) Yup, same. I'd rather hack 1000 lines of code than 100 lines of man page. The man pages are the "other 90%" of the job. > `In fact, someone here (wasn't it here) > recently provided a pointer to an AT&T page on Unix history, wherein > one specific person was creditied with making sure that all programs > on Unix had man pages - and even to getting some programs rewritten to > be up to the standards for the man pages. > > Now disk space being costly may well be why the original Unix man > pages weren't formated, but kept on disk in nroff form and formatted > when you read them. > When a fellow student griped that the man pages were hard to understand, our prof said something like, "Tough; get used to it because that's how it'll always be with man pages. They are summaries, not tutorials." This was in 1978 and since both disk and RAM has gotten *way* cheaper, it seems to me that paradigm should change. Sure, give me the summary of flags up-front-and-terse. But examples or hyperlinks to examples and perhaps a tutorial sure wouldn't hurt. gary To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-questions" in the body of the message
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