Re: [Groff] manpages, manpages everywhere

[Jorgen Grahn]

On Tue Feb 11 20:26:48 2003, address@hidden wrote:
> Yes, man pages seem to be an inherently conservative
> institution.  Over the years I've heard a lot of people
> suggest ways to improve their usability, but ultimately
> it comes down to the fact that what is familiar is considered
> most usable...

Yes. And when you look at API references written by people who obviously
have never read a section three man page, you almost always find them vastly
inferior to an average man page.  I'm looking at one such monster
(autogenerated HTML/JavaScript) right now...

It's not just familiarity -- the man page format is fairly good, and a lot
if people have failed while trying inventing something better.

/Jorgen

-- 
  // Jörgen Grahn       "And then the design was ignored, and small children
\X/ <address@hidden>  with crayons were given the O'Reilly Perl books and
                         told to Create.  And lo, it was done."
                                                         -- Teo de H, in ASR