Re: manual

[Ray Andrews <rayandrews@eastlink.ca>]

On 2022-12-20 20:43, Bart Schaefer wrote:
> In this particular case (as you noted) there's an entire other section 
> already dedicated to the single-letter options that can be manipulated 
Yabut they sent you to the head of an entire nother section of the 
manual.  Avoiding an entire block of duplication could be OK but say 
something like: "There are many other 'set' switches that are duplicated 
in/for the 'setopt' command (q.v.) which you can read just below this 
entry."
> with "set" and another for the long names for "set -o".
Ah!  Another thing I missed.  It's far from clear that they're even 
talking about single-letter options.  Why not say that?  I spent about 
two hours reading, experimenting, re-writing, trying to get every bit of 
information out of that page and I missed 'set -A' (by itself) and 
single letter options entirely.  Not to be too whiny but 'set' is a dogs 
breakfast of bad design.  It is a bizarre bazaar of bits and pieces of 
semi-related functionality rather like a junk-shop or a gypsy camp.  
It's like jazz -- don't ask for a definition.
> It might have been nice to be consistent about what was an "option"
> and what was a "flag" or a "switch", but those terms are thrown around
> colloquially with interpretation expected from context.

More than nice.  As discussed, manuals are not really focused on being 
helpful, but they should be absolutely consistent.  Perhaps a bit of 
literary license is welcome in a paragraph of exposition, but in a 
synopsis, if the word is 'flag' then stick with flag throughout.  I like 
'switch' myself but that's DOSey.  (A flag is a variable used to 
communicate some bit of information between one part of code an another 
IMHO.)  Nope, the entire Linux word (no doubt UNIX too but I've never 
touched it) should be ashamed of itself for it's abominable 
documentation.  Our manual is far from the worst.


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