man pages

[bscott at ntisys.com]

On Fri, 13 Dec 2002, at 2:48pm, steveo at syslang.net wrote:
> info pages are really cool.

  GNU Info is yet another non-standard, incompatible hypertext system that
is only used by the vendor that created it.  The only thing that keeps it
from being brought down to the level of MS Windows Help is that GNU Info is,
at least, an open system.  The fact that the 'info' browser is, like Emacs,
incredibly non-intuitive doesn't help either.

  The rest of the freaking planet has moved to HTML.  For crying out loud,
even *Microsoft*, the world's least-friendly software company, has moved to
HTML.  I can read the documentation for Microsoft Exchange easier than I can
read the docs for GCC.  It is about time GNU got off their expletive
high-horse and got with the freaking program.

> Can you imagine saying man gcc and having to wade through that mess
> without hypertaxt?

  man pages are not supposed to be comprehensive, system-wide documentation.  
They are, as the name implies, intended to be the "page" of reference
documentation about a particular small command, function, or feature.  In
other words, a concise reference.  They are not, nor were they ever intended
to, replace "guide" documentation that explains how the pieces fit together.

  The fact that GNU refuses to provide man pages ("The GNU project regards
man pages as obsolete") only further aggravates the situation with GNU Info.

> And I dare say that the number of commands needed to learn how to run info
> is far less than what you have to learn to run man.

  Huh?  'info foo' vs 'man foo'.  One each.  Am I missing something?

-- 
Ben Scott <bscott at ntisys.com>
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