Re: [Groff] Draft paper: "Writing Effective Manual Pages"

[Pete Phillips]

With all due respect to Eric Raymond, I would like to say a big thank
you to big man pages.  At least you know you can find the information
you need, and as long as it is being pumped through a decent pager (less
is more) you can search and navigate to your hearts content.

The good thing is that it keeps everything simple - 'man zshall' on
*any* workstation in our lab and you can find out just about anything
you need on zsh.  All it relies on is a complete man/groff
installation. I get really annoyed when I fire up a man page and it
redirects me to a bl***y info page. Not only do I have to run another
command, I also have to use info. Now *that* is way too complicated to
navigate - I can never find what I need (yes I know there are search
options which will search them all). man+less allows me to use vi
keystrokes to navigate and search. That's all I want. It has served me
well since System 5.1 and I *DON'T WANT IT CHANGED*.  Ahem. :-)

I agree that doesn't detract from the need for a useful HOWTO,
or even an O'Reilly book (try stopping them, anyway!) but please don't
let man pages be demoted to second class status!  

Pete

--
Pete Phillips, Deputy Director, Surgical Materials Testing Lab, 
Bridgend General Hospital, Bridgend, S. Wales.
address@hidden

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"SCIENCE: A way of finding things out and then making them work.  
Science explains what is happening around us the whole time.
So does RELIGION, but science is better because it comes up with 
more understandable excuses when its wrong. There is a lot more 
science than you think."
        From "A Scientific Encyclopedia for the Enquiring Young Nome" 
        by Angelo de Haberdasheri (T. Pratchett).
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