Date: Thu, 18 Jun 1998 13:30:58 +1000 From: Sue Blake <sue@welearn.com.au> To: allen campbell <allenc@verinet.com> Cc: nik@nothing-going-on.demon.co.uk, freebsd-newbies@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: Pine and Pico Message-ID: <19980618133058.01310@welearn.com.au> In-Reply-To: <199806180214.UAA03764@struct.>; from allen campbell on Wed, Jun 17, 1998 at 08:14:30PM -0600 References: <19980617180012.64598@welearn.com.au> <199806180214.UAA03764@struct.>
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On Wed, Jun 17, 1998 at 08:14:30PM -0600, allen campbell wrote:
> > > would show you the information you're looking for in the "Invocation"
> > > section.
> >
> > Of course, the "Invocation" section! Jeez, I'd never have thought of that
> > word, glad you mentioned it :-)
> >
> > > Alternatively, you could look at some existing shell scripts on your
> > > system to see if they do it. /etc/rc, /etc/rc.serial and /etc/rc.firewall
> > > have examples of examining the positional parameters passed to a script
> > > (although, granted, they're not the easiest code to understand).
> >
> > "positional parameters"? I reckon it'd be much easier to get info out of
> > man pages if some of these words were more familiar, and I guess that
> > sort of grows on you after doing battle with man pages for a while.
> > There isn't a glossary anywhere, is there?
>
> I've been frustrated with this also. I can honestly say that I do
> my best to read the available material before asking questions,
> but that much of that time is wasted guessing my way through enormous
> man pages.
>
> I have seen manual pages that provide a section list near the top.
> Many of the larger manual pages in HP-UX provide this. Each section
> in the page is listed (sans SEE ALSO, AUTHOR and other 'standard'
> sections,) allowing you search for a section quickly.
>
> In this case having 'Invocation' listed as one of the available
> sections might have done the trick. Consider the 5016 lines
> (according to more(1)) of the bash man page. This thing might be
> a lot more helpful if there was a section list something like:
>
>
After seeing your outline of the bash man page it occurred to me that we
have a problem with the use of common words with new specialised
meanings. Someone in the know might imagine that, for example, since
"signal" is a common word, everyone should know what it means in this
context.
Take 'argument' for example. You might laugh if I were to say:
The argument for mkdir is cd.
Though it's clearly wrong, it does kinda sound OK, don't you think?
Just imagine how wrong someone could get these words if they
were interpreted according to everyday experience:
ARGUMENTS INVOCATION
reasons for or against magic spell
DEFINITIONS RESERVED WORDS
explain words simply naughty words, e.g. for body functions
SHELL GRAMMAR COMMENTS
asking nicely for petrol opinions (see also reserved words)
QUOTING PARAMETERS
including original mail range to keep within to meet budget
EXPANSION REDIRECTION
effect of too much pizza go ask in -questions
ALIASES FUNCTIONS
email/IRC names see reserved words
These words gradually become associated with their new meanings by
repeated proper use in the new context. Hearing them without them being
defined in context doesn't help much. It's saying them that helps the
words stick, and for that, some new definitions would be handy. Maybe
there is something in the shell FAQ, I haven't looked yet.
> Anyhow, If you run X, you might look into tkman. It is available
> in the ports and it makes manual pages a couple orders of magnitude
> more useful. There is a 'random manual page' button in this program
> in case your _really_ bored. :)
Or really stumped :-) I will try that next time I have X up, thanks for
the tip. xman or whatever it is didn't impress me much. It couldn't find
all of the man pages, so I couldn't find the man page that told me how
to tell it where to find the man pages.
--
Regards,
-*Sue*-
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