Path: csiph.com!x330-a1.tempe.blueboxinc.net!usenet.pasdenom.info!news.albasani.net!eternal-september.org!feeder.eternal-september.org!.POSTED!not-for-mail From: Tim Watts Newsgroups: comp.unix.programmer Subject: Re: How to write a UNIX man page Followup-To: comp.unix.programmer Date: Thu, 02 Jun 2011 12:47:49 +0100 Organization: A noiseless patient Spider Lines: 29 Message-ID: <5s9kb8-pee.ln1@squidward.dionic.net> References: <97dc4380-6f30-4f16-b3c6-10a7492c1093@e21g2000vbz.googlegroups.com> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="ISO-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7Bit Injection-Info: mx04.eternal-september.org; posting-host="6oIlEBqCjOm0MjsSUEk5CA"; logging-data="748"; mail-complaints-to="abuse@eternal-september.org"; posting-account="U2FsdGVkX1+Phji9iCc+2olsJ6qLXUsa/ModzdhDYUs=" User-Agent: KNode/4.4.10 Cancel-Lock: sha1:U5ffno9Jd+vj+4cmENjKgwfd7ss= Xref: x330-a1.tempe.blueboxinc.net comp.unix.programmer:703 Mark R. Bannister wrote: > I realise that with GNU 'info' a lot of developers become, dare I say > it, quite lazy when it comes to providing a well written man page - > and some argue they're not needed at all. But I find, in the products > that I develop, that man pages are used more often for quick > reference, and therefore the quality and usability of a product can be > improved by providing well written man pages. > > To that end, and because I've been writing man pages myself for over > 10 years, I've decided to provide some notes for beginners on how to > write your own man page. I hope this article is of help to the wider > developer community: > > http://technicalprose.blogspot.com/2011/06/how-to-write-unix-man-page.html > > Best regards, > Mark. Well done. I thought "info" was dead - I don't know of anyone who doesn't use "man" for local documentation. Personally, desite man's lack of hyperlinking[1] I find "info" confusing and unintuitive so I couldn't be bothered. [1] DEC's VMS HELP command was a decent implementation of how to do this properly and nothing text based has surpassed it IMO. -- Tim Watts