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From: tytso@mit.edu (Theodore Ts'o)
Subject: [TUHS] Another "craft" discussion topic - mindless tool proliferation
Date: Tue, 19 Sep 2017 22:07:41 -0400	[thread overview]
Message-ID: <20170920020741.ihjr5s4p243ycwef@thunk.org> (raw)
In-Reply-To: <20170920010206.GZ25650@mcvoy.com>

On Tue, Sep 19, 2017 at 06:02:06PM -0700, Larry McVoy wrote:
> 
> +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.

Most of the core Unix utilities, even those coming from GNU, have real
man pages, at least under Debian and Debian derivatives.  That's
because Debian makes it the package maintainer's responsibility to
provide a real man page if the package doesn't have one.  If you are
using Debian or Ubuntu, or some other Debian derivative, and you find
a man page which says, "see the texinfo/info file", you should file a
bug.

The other thing that often happens is that the html pages are
available in /usr/share/doc/<pkg> --- but often they were generated
from a texinfo file.  I personally prefer to use an info file reader,
as it tends to use much less battery power than a browser.  So if you
prefer:

	sensible-browser /usr/share/make/make-doc/make.html/index.html

over "info make", choice is good, right?

					- Ted


  parent reply	other threads:[~2017-09-20  2:07 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
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 [this message]
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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