> Date: Sat, 22 Apr 2006 10:28:15 +0200 > From: Stepan Kasal <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> > > On Fri, Apr 21, 2006 at 01:56:26PM -0700, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: > > Man pages should be complete and should also be the primary source of > > online documentation, [...]. I have been a Unix user since 1990, [...] > > I understand your feelings. And yes, I use man pages as a reference > manual, for the basic explanation of a tool.
Can you tell why you don't use "info --usage PROGRAM" for the same purpose? Just inertia, or something else? > In ancient times, the GNU project tried to replace manpages by the info > system. Though this has some resonance among emacs users, in general the > concept failed, and I think it's time to accept that manpages will exist > forever, as Fortran will. ;-) This is not about accepting the existence of man pages: the Info reader does display the man page if it cannot find the Info manual, which is a clear proof that the facts of life are accepted. This is about the basic superiority of the Info documentation, as you yourself rightfully mention: > But I think that the man format can not hold all the information. > > When Unix started, it was a bunch of simple programs, each of them was > simple enough to be described in one page. > > But I'm afraid that things which don't fit this schema appeared very soon: Etc., I agree with all your examples (and could provide quite a few more, but I think the issue is clear). This basic superiority of the Info manuals is what the OP does not accept, without explaining why. > BTW: I'd like to speak against help2man here: the above explains that > man should have more information than --help. help2man creates too > terse manpage from too long --help. I explained why: help2man is a lip service. If you want the real info, use "info --usage PROGRAM". > So the problem is clear: > how can one have one ultimate source for info, man and possibly also > --help? > I think that a well-written proposal could be of great help. Texinfo already solves the info and man issue quite satisfactory (although too many people don't know about that). I don't know why it's so important to have --help to come from the same source (e.g., ask Karl why some options of makeinfo and info are deliberately omitted from --help), but if it is, a script that would extract some of the Invocation node into a compilable .c file would not be too hard to craft. _______________________________________________ Texinfo home page: http://www.gnu.org/software/texinfo/ [email protected] http://lists.gnu.org/mailman/listinfo/bug-texinfo
