[TUHS] Re: On computerese

Catching up on the last month's worth of email.... At Mon, 30 Sep 2024 12:05:52 -0400, Paul Winalski <paul.winalski(a)gmail.com> wrote: Subject: [TUHS] Re: On computerese Actually Unix has "always" (since 7th Edition at least) had a place to ask such questions! As a Unix beginner back in 1980, using 7th Edition, I was taught, right from the beginning, to use the permuted index to find things, which is essentially what BSD apropos(1) does. Of course anyone with even the tiniest smattering of academic experience would expect to have an index to use to find things, and for me taking this one step further with a permuted index using the keywords from the one-line descriptions of commands was a new and wonderful discovery. I think I had a printed copy of the Unix permuted index, though I don't remember for sure. You can find ls(1) in the 7th Edition permuted index in three places: ls list contents of directory....... ls(1) ls list contents of directory................... ls(1) ls list contents of directory.. ls(1) The manual page for ls(1) is unfortunately missing one useful keyword in the short description and using one less meaningful keyword. Perhaps the entry should have been more like: ls \- list the files in a directory Anyway folks in my first-year classes didn't need, or shouldn't have needed, to use the index to find ls(1) because we were given printed copies of the 7th Edition's "UNIX For Beginners Second Edition" by BWK. Perhaps the permuted index was included in the package. We were also using Multics, and had been given printed copies of a Multics new user help document as well. -- Greg A. Woods <gwoods(a)acm.org> Kelowna, BC +1 250 762-7675 RoboHack <woods(a)robohack.ca> Planix, Inc. <woods(a)planix.com> Avoncote Farms <woods(a)avoncote.ca>