Path: csiph.com!fu-berlin.de!uni-berlin.de!individual.net!not-for-mail From: "Carlos E. R." Newsgroups: comp.os.linux.misc,comp.unix.shell Subject: Re: [OT] Punch card times (was Re: Taking Speedy too seriously) Date: Mon, 2 Nov 2026 23:32:48 +0100 Lines: 106 Message-ID: References: <18dee4b6cab427fa$865$2574533$802601b3@news.usenetexpress.com> <11bg381$1bjd2$1@dont-email.me> <11bhv61$1bjd2$2@dont-email.me> <11bi77v$20c1p$1@news.xmission.com> <11binqk$1bjd2$3@dont-email.me> <11bmnvg$36mvk$1@dont-email.me> <11bp7nd$139t9$2@dont-email.me> <1omdnboFafC6TX33nZ2dnZfqn_GdnZ2d@giganews.com> <11brekh$139ta$4@dont-email.me> <76sES.99248$xwD5.81928@fx47.iad> <11bvs57$3gfju$3@dont-email.me> <11c5356$n1fl$1@dont-email.me> <11c5lhs$nak9$3@dont-email.me> <11c7ql0$nak9$5@dont-email.me> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit X-Trace: individual.net 5dvJP+YAfpYcYt8Kqr5/PwdkAESGdGx4JGbCmYg2urs2IkM2+2 Cancel-Lock: sha1:OM5U656X3vmxHTus/Pfdm0LPPG4= sha256:xVqUflpJXb8Gb950K8Siz4xRYQEkBY0Vi2vYZYsOqpQ= User-Agent: Mozilla Thunderbird Content-Language: en-GB In-Reply-To: <11c7ql0$nak9$5@dont-email.me> Xref: csiph.com comp.os.linux.misc:94958 comp.unix.shell:27138 On 2026-11-01 17:50, Janis Papanagnou wrote: > On 2026-11-01 12:59, Carlos E. R. wrote: >> On 2026-10-31 22:11, Janis Papanagnou wrote: >>> On 2026-10-31 19:56, Carlos E. R. wrote: >>>> On 2026-10-31 16:57, Janis Papanagnou wrote: >>>>> On 2026-10-31 11:40, Carlos E. R. wrote: >>>>>> >>>>>> Talking of manuals, I find large man pages very difficult to use, >>>>>> specially when you need something specific. No clickable table of >>>>>> content, no clickable index. Info pages are somewhat better. >>>>> >>>>> I agree with you on the _horrendous large_ 'man' "pages". >>>>> They shouldn't replace exhaustive and thorough documentation, IMO. >>>>> But worse I think are the ("maneuverable") 'info' pages. >>>>> Or the habit of some "Unixes" to have no man-page information but >>>>> only a stub with the hint to look into the (IMO horrendous) 'info' >>>>> pages. (I'm aware that some certainly prefer them; how else would >>>>> their proliferation be otherwise explainable.) >>>>> >>>>> Concerning "clickable" information generally, mind the time when >>>>> man-pages were introduced! >>>> >>>> Yes, I understand that. Isn't time we get something better? >>> >>> But technically we have already "clickable" documents; with HTML for >>> example. >> >> Yes, and some tools use that. But then, a command like "apropos" does >> not find that page. > > Frankly, I don't know the installation process of my Linux distro in > detail, but I can say that when I add a new tool-binary I instantly > also have the man page accessible, and I find the respective infos > through 'apropos' as well. I don't see why there would be a principal > hindrance to do that for other information sources as well. > >> >>> >>> (Although it should still be available in one page, and ideally also >>> searchable by regexps in easy ways. (As opposed to click on a search >>> icon, move the mouse to a new sub-window, (optionally) click another >>> time in that window to "activate" it for input, type in only a fixed >>> non-regexp text (often without possibility to distinguish caps, or, >>> if you're lucky, only with an extra click in some control-box), and >>> hit enter (if you're lucky) or have to again move the mouse to click >>> on some Okay button.) - I certainly hate to have no '/search-pattern' >>> or 'search-pattern' available; with emphasis on "pattern".) >>> >>> Personally I typically want (at least) three levels of information. >>> Terse usage information, complete interface description, and thorough >>> explanations of all details in case of the more complex tools. >>> >> >> And an examples section. How to do this or that. > > This is often useful. For powerful large tools this might exceed > what one likes in a man-page, though, and would just contribute > to making the man-page "unreadable" due to its length. Here again > I think that the type of the examples is the discriminating info; > the man-page should certainly contain the technical options and > examples how to call the tool with those, but (having tools like > Imagemagick in mind) not the functional usage examples that would > better be placed in a tutorial type of documentation. Sometimes a tool has a small man page, then a large structured document in some other format. > >> >>> Mostly we (now) have all that information; if only through the Web. >>> (But often inconsistent or even unreliable.) >>> >>> Should we have everything just in one (clickable) format like HTML? >>> I don't think so. Should we have all the spread existing information >>> rewritten in some other format? Well, who would do that job? >>> >>> What I (also) criticize is that we don't have a consistent level of >>> information with some newer Linux platforms. I wished for the "second >>> level" of information that the man page format would have been kept/ >>> maintained instead of trying to deprive that format in favor of the >>> 'info' format. >> >> Well, I find "info date" (for me "pinfo date") better for finding the >> information than "man date". Or "pinfo gcc". > > One problem I have with 'info' is that I see only a paragraph of > a subsection of a section of the described thing. I certainly want > to see more context! I also like to have the typical chapters that > describe the tools' _interfaces_ (the name with terse description, > the usage synopsis, a description, the list of options, returned > status codes, files that affect the tool in some way, example uses, > and know bugs, for example). > > The 'date' manual you gave as example is certainly not one of the > pathologically huge man-pages (with its 200 lines, and most of it > is anyway just a table of the format specifiers). > > Janis > >> [...] -- Cheers, Carlos E.R. ES🇪🇸, EU🇪🇺.