From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 X-Spam-Checker-Version: SpamAssassin 3.4.4 (2020-01-24) on inbox.vuxu.org X-Spam-Level: X-Spam-Status: No, score=-1.0 required=5.0 tests=MAILING_LIST_MULTI autolearn=ham autolearn_force=no version=3.4.4 Received: (qmail 14116 invoked from network); 21 Sep 2023 03:48:33 -0000 Received: from minnie.tuhs.org (50.116.15.146) by inbox.vuxu.org with ESMTPUTF8; 21 Sep 2023 03:48:33 -0000 Received: from minnie.tuhs.org (localhost [IPv6:::1]) by minnie.tuhs.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id E8405415AF; Thu, 21 Sep 2023 13:48:28 +1000 (AEST) Received: from mail.ultimate.com (mail.ultimate.com [IPv6:2607:fc50:0:15::100]) by minnie.tuhs.org (Postfix) with ESMTPS id F179F415AC for ; Thu, 21 Sep 2023 13:48:21 +1000 (AEST) Received: from ultimate.com (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by mail.ultimate.com (8.17.1/8.17.1) with ESMTPS id 38L3mJIO097032 (version=TLSv1.3 cipher=TLS_AES_256_GCM_SHA384 bits=256 verify=NO); Wed, 20 Sep 2023 23:48:19 -0400 (EDT) (envelope-from phil@ultimate.com) Received: (from phil@localhost) by ultimate.com (8.17.1/8.17.1/Submit) id 38L3mJDD097031; Wed, 20 Sep 2023 23:48:19 -0400 (EDT) (envelope-from phil) From: Phil Budne Message-Id: <202309210348.38L3mJDD097031@ultimate.com> Date: Wed, 20 Sep 2023 23:48:19 -0400 To: tuhs@tuhs.org References: <4CmySC-mFud1dlrqfAq1itmNKoTWVi8cTuAqCvtUengKvv5CWEoYCFf6-I18dwf5BVSZWAxC-B6BP6Y1e0Gi_mlga344b5cxu5TlUCLXHeg=@protonmail.com> <20230919233925.GB28844@mcvoy.com> <20230920195635.GG28844@mcvoy.com> In-Reply-To: User-Agent: Heirloom mailx 12.4 7/29/08 MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Message-ID-Hash: 23RZDU7HVC5P2WBOFRRTNMVMBJBRRUF6 X-Message-ID-Hash: 23RZDU7HVC5P2WBOFRRTNMVMBJBRRUF6 X-MailFrom: phil@ultimate.com X-Mailman-Rule-Misses: dmarc-mitigation; no-senders; approved; emergency; loop; banned-address; member-moderation; nonmember-moderation; administrivia; implicit-dest; max-recipients; max-size; news-moderation; no-subject; digests; suspicious-header X-Mailman-Version: 3.3.6b1 Precedence: list Subject: [TUHS] Re: Project Idea: The UNIX Programmer's Manual: Heritage Edition List-Id: The Unix Heritage Society mailing list Archived-At: List-Archive: List-Help: List-Owner: List-Post: List-Subscribe: List-Unsubscribe: Adam Thornton: > Say what you will about VMS, its HELP functionality makes it much easier to > go from "I want to do X" to "And here's a sequence of commands that will do > X" when you don't already have a good mental model of what's on the system. I'm reminded of two fourty-odd year old diatribes(*) against Unix documentation, yet somehow the Unix model has persisted, while other systems have long since been taken out with yesterdays ashbin of history. My beef, coming from TOPS-20 with VMS "HELP" was that (in the days on having a single dumb terminal on your desk) was if you couldn't remember a switch midway through typing a command you had to erase it, wade through multiple levels of HELP screens, cancel out of that, and then type the switch, until you realized you needed another switch. On TOPS-20 you just typed ? Yes, I suppose Unix-like systems could have section of pages with overviews of functional areas (tho to be fair, v6/v7 era Unix didn't have any facilities complex enough to warrant such things). And it depends on which Unix-like system: "man 4 inet" on FreeBSD is a more useful intro to TCP/IP socket programming than anything I can find on my Ubuntu 22.04 system. However, the FreeBSD man page (unhelpfully) references two 4.3 BSD Interprocess Communication Tutorials with no obvious information on how to find them. (*) For diatribe #1 search for: "Last night I dreamed that the Real World had adopted the Unix Philosophy". For #2 search for "it's literally a five-foot shelf of documentation"