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From: lm@mcvoy.com (Larry McVoy)
Subject: [TUHS] Another "craft" discussion topic - mindless tool proliferation
Date: Tue, 19 Sep 2017 18:02:06 -0700	[thread overview]
Message-ID: <20170920010206.GZ25650@mcvoy.com> (raw)
In-Reply-To: <91641FC6-4CF5-4682-B8C3-8BB3DCCB208C@orthanc.ca>

On Tue, Sep 19, 2017 at 05:47:42PM -0700, Lyndon Nerenberg wrote:
> 
> > On Sep 19, 2017, at 4:35 PM, Theodore Ts'o <tytso at mit.edu> wrote:
> > 
> > If you take a look at how perl handles its man pages, with 188 man
> > pages in section 1:
> 
> ... you quickly recognize the difference between a manpage (i.e. reference page) and a user manual.  Perl's (and other's) attempts to pack a 200 page user guide into a block of manpages is a misuse of what manpages represent.
> 
> texinfo was a good move in the direction towards online, cross-referenced, user documentation.  But so often that lead to manpages that consisted of the single line "see the texinfo doc"; the documentation authors completely missing the point.

+1.  Man pages should be short things that remind you how to run the program.
Putting a user guide in man pages is nuts, and in today's world texinfo is
just as nuts.  Put it on the web and move on.  But don't give me the see
texinfo man page, I hate that crap.


  reply	other threads:[~2017-09-20  1:02 UTC|newest]

Thread overview: 54+ messages / expand[flat|nested]  mbox.gz  Atom feed  top
2017-09-19 17:01 Jon Steinhart
2017-09-19 17:05 ` Steve Nickolas
2017-09-19 20:31   ` Pete Turnbull
2017-09-19 20:37     ` Warner Losh
2017-09-19 23:35 ` Theodore Ts'o
2017-09-20  0:47   ` Lyndon Nerenberg
2017-09-20  1:02     ` Larry McVoy [this message]
2017-09-20  1:09       ` Lyndon Nerenberg
2017-09-20  1:13         ` Larry McVoy
2017-09-20  1:22           ` Larry McVoy
2017-09-20  2:01             ` Larry McVoy
2017-09-20  2:34               ` Bakul Shah
2017-09-20  2:47                 ` Larry McVoy
2017-09-20  6:18                   ` Bakul Shah
2017-09-20  4:35                 ` Grant Taylor
2017-09-20  5:54                   ` Ian Zimmerman
2017-09-24 23:03                 ` Ralph Corderoy
2017-09-24 23:35                   ` Bakul Shah
2017-09-20 16:49             ` Steffen Nurpmeso
2017-09-20  4:29         ` Grant Taylor
2017-09-20  6:43         ` Peter Jeremy
2017-09-20  8:25           ` Bakul Shah
2017-09-20  9:12             ` Steve Nickolas
2017-09-20  9:34               ` Bakul Shah
2017-09-20 16:48         ` Steffen Nurpmeso
2017-09-20  2:07       ` Theodore Ts'o
2017-09-24 22:58         ` Ralph Corderoy
2017-09-20  4:26       ` Grant Taylor
2017-09-20 16:45     ` Steffen Nurpmeso
2017-09-21 17:33     ` Tony Finch
2017-09-21 18:39       ` Steffen Nurpmeso
2017-09-22  0:02         ` Greg 'groggy' Lehey
2017-09-22  0:30           ` Lyndon Nerenberg
2017-09-22  0:38             ` Larry McVoy
2017-09-22  0:39               ` Lyndon Nerenberg
2017-09-22  0:50                 ` Larry McVoy
2017-09-22  1:01                   ` Lyndon Nerenberg
2017-09-22  1:08                     ` Larry McVoy
2017-09-22 20:09                       ` [TUHS] remaking make (Re: " Bakul Shah
2017-09-22  2:25                   ` [TUHS] " Warner Losh
2017-09-22  3:26               ` Greg 'groggy' Lehey
2017-09-22  4:09                 ` ron minnich
2017-09-22  2:20             ` Warner Losh
2017-09-22  0:36           ` Larry McVoy
2017-09-22  0:40             ` Lyndon Nerenberg
2017-09-22  1:53             ` Michael Parson
2017-09-22  3:25       ` Grant Taylor
2017-09-20  6:20   ` Lars Brinkhoff
2017-09-20 16:39   ` Steffen Nurpmeso
2017-09-24 22:54   ` Ralph Corderoy
2017-09-25  0:16     ` Steve Johnson
2017-09-25 11:30       ` Ralph Corderoy
2017-09-20 18:15 ` Clem Cole
2017-09-20 18:35   ` Jon Steinhart

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