On Friday 06 February 2009 06:40:01 Stroller wrote: > > If the problem is "contents" then that's nothing to do with > > man, but with whomever made (or didn't made) the page. > > Yes, but there's a problem with the MAJORITY of contents, perhaps of > the majority of people writing manpages? It just seems to be a culture > of the way man pages are written. They make perfect sense only with > experience - don't get me wrong, I love 'em and at least to a degree I > think that's how it should be.
Man pages are mostly written as reference documents. Like technical specs, they tend to list the capabilities of the app without giving the "bigger picture overview" as that is assumed to be known. They are not teaching aids or howtos. For that you need classes, dummy guides etc. When you've learned how man pages work, then you can use the man pages. But the man pages don't tell you how the man pages work. -- alan dot mckinnon at gmail dot com
