17 Sep
2019
17 Sep
'19
12:19 a.m.
KatolaZ writes:
Dear Jon, I am a child of the 70s, so I know the drill
;)
What I am saying is that the vast majority of the software from the
GNU project actually has a good-quality manpage acoompanying it. And
it also has the same documentation in info format. Hence I see no
point in vomiting on info (which I mostly dislike anyway, as I said),
as on any other document format, as long as the same information is
made available via manpages as well, as it is the case for most of the
software present in current Unix systems, wherever it comes from. The
split caused by the introduction of info has mainly been cured by the
community, maybe too late, but still.
We can discuss whether the split was necessary or "right" in the first
instance, as we could discuss whether it was good or not for cat(1) to
leave Murray Hill in 1979 with no options and come back from Berkley
with a source code doubled in size and 9 options in 1982. We could do
that, but perhaps we shouldn't get too partisan, since the history of
Unix is not a simple single-threaded and linear one, as the many
insightful contributions posted in this ML show. It's a continuum,
where it is difficult to find any single element which is totally
right or totally wrong.
I honestly see more danger in the recent trend that avoids
documentation altogether, except for a scant README.md file at the top
of the sources. There is an entire generation of developers who see
little value in producing (and using) online documentation, where by
online I mean manpage-like or info-like docs. For the simple reason
that the main way in which documentation is produced and distributed
has changed a lot in the last 25 years. Now it's all about googling
the right words, unfortunately.
We can keep blaming RMS, info, or the GNU project, but indeed blaming
them for the Web would be a bit too much ;)
And this is perhaps becoming OT anyway.
HND
Enzo Nicosia
Well, maybe we're just violently agreeing. Again, while I think that
info is klunky-feeling, my issue is the ecosystem fragmentation.
I think that it's not our place to discuss cat as Rob is on the list
and he owns that :-)
I do agree that the utter lack of any documentation is a bigger problem.
Or worse, the document that says how to download, build, and install a
package without ever saying what it does or how to use it.
I'm not blaming RMS or GNU, I'm just using them as examples of a way of
doing things that I don't like. I certainly don't blame them for the web.
Please let's not get started on that!
Jon