From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Mime-Version: 1.0 (Apple Message framework v746.2) In-Reply-To: <882933eeeb9377858c8256a03f054ec1@terzarima.net> References: <882933eeeb9377858c8256a03f054ec1@terzarima.net> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII; delsp=yes; format=flowed Message-Id: Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit From: Lyndon Nerenberg Subject: Re: [9fans] Capitalization in man pages. Date: Tue, 6 Dec 2005 05:02:26 -0800 To: Fans of the OS Plan 9 from Bell Labs <9fans@cse.psu.edu> Topicbox-Message-UUID: ba18799e-ead0-11e9-9d60-3106f5b1d025 On Dec 6, 2005, at 4:32 AM, Charles Forsyth wrote: >> But most importantly, they try to ensure >> consistency throughout the documentation set. > > so does Plan 9; it just doesn't use your rules. I'm curious about this comment. man(6) describes the macros it makes available, but it says nothing about how they should be used in the context of writing the man page itself. There is no mention whatsoever of style or usage. (USG derived UNIXen suffered this malady as well, to varying degrees.) So how is an author to know how to write something that is congruent with the current style? They can read existing man pages and try to glean from them, but inevitably errors will creep in. And those errors will become input to the next generation of authors, and so it goes. Wasn't it Steve Johnson who did the original sweep through the UNIX man pages, editing out inconsistent usage and rationalizing the layout? In the 1970s? --lyndon P.S. And no, I am not in any way pissing on Rob's work!