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Re: SEE ALSO fails


From: Steve Izma
Subject: Re: SEE ALSO fails
Date: Sat, 30 Oct 2021 19:12:37 -0400

On Sat, Oct 30, 2021 at 07:53:13PM +0200, Ingo Schwarze wrote:
> Subject: Re: SEE ALSO fails
> 
> James K. Lowden wrote on Sat, Oct 30, 2021 at 12:08:03PM -0400:
> 
> > A longstanding complaint of mine regarding Linux man pages is
> > that they frequently have broken SEE ALSO references.  I
> > wonder if there's not something the groff project could do to
> > encourage packaging systems to avoid such errors.  
> 
> I think the basic idea expressed here is a terrible one, and we should
> better not even consider how to implement it.

This is an extremely unimaginative response. The whole point of
computers is to solve problems, not to perpetuate them.

On systems with package managers (which should be all operating
systems), there already exists a database of packages that are
installed. If the documentation system is sufficiently modular,
that surely an optional utility could be added to the pipeline
that produces manual pages that simply reports the installation
status of a package. This seems to be what James is inquiring
about. If the documentation system is not sufficiently modular,
then it seems to me it was constructed without regard to the Unix
philosophy.

> In an operating system that is an operating system in the BSD
> sense,
> ...
> In an operating system that is not an operating system in the
> above sense, for example GNU/Linux, but instead a toolbox where
> every user can pick whatever components they want and where
> consequently every user is responsible for making sure that
> whatever set of tools they pick actually results in a working
> operating system, such dangling links are unavoidable.

This needlessly pejorative statement not only ignores the
existence of a packaging manager database but assumes that a
"real" operating system must restrict the user's freedom to
configure a set of utilities as are locally needed. Sounds
proprietary to me.

    -- Steve

-- 
Steve Izma
-
Home: 35 Locust St., Kitchener, Ontario, Canada  N2H 1W6
E-mail: sizma@golden.net  phone: 519-745-1313
cell (text only; not frequently checked): 519-998-2684

==
The most erroneous stories are those we think we know best – and
therefore never scrutinize or question.
    -- Stephen Jay Gould, *Full House: The Spread of Excellence
    from Plato to Darwin*, 1996



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