[aklug] Geeky Topic of the Week: man pages

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Let me say, starting off, that this topic is proffered to the list
primarily to spark discussion and flame wars, rather than provide an
actual commitment to productivity. (Thereby making this a truly geeky
discussion according to the usual orthodox qualifications.)

So, most of us have had this experience, have we not?

 1. We want to do XYZ in Linux
 2. We Google XYZ. (No satisfying answer.)
 3. We make a post to a Linux forum about XYZ.
 4. A day later, somebody replies to the thread with an answer like so:

You !@#!@$ idiot! RTFM! Any idiot can see that the answer is on line 457
of the XYZ-UTIL(1) man page. Stop being a lazy #$!@# and do you homework
first!

And we are left thinking "I didn't even know there was an XYZ-UTIL man
page," or "Jeepers, I read the XYZ-UTIL man page, but somehow I missed
that note in line 457."

So, maybe we need to write some kind of man page search engine, which
would allow you to "Google" all the man page content on your system? Or
maybe the man page system itself is flawed?

- --
Christopher Howard
http://indicium.us
http://theologia.indicium.us

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Received on Fri Jul 9 13:40:07 2010