[reduced audience]
Roland Mainz wrote:
>>
>> So, why produce a poor answer when a better one is possible?
>
> What about the resource "manpower" ? If I take on /usr/bin/man then I
> want to do a complete overhaul of that thing and not a half solution.
One of the things that engineering maturity brings is the ability
to plan for a sequence of desired outcomes rather than attempting to
do everything in one huge effort. "Divide and conquer", "Only change
one thing at a time", "Done is better than Perfect", "Don't try
and boil the ocean or solve world hunger"....
Yes it might be nice to rewrite man(1) from scratch, but chances are
that if you tried, the complexity would overwhelm your good intentions
and it probably wouldn't ever get done. On the other hand, a sequence
of bug fixes and rfe's, each one a weekend's effort by one person, would
have an excellent chance of knocking off most of the worst offenses,
resulting in a man command that would be significantly better.
-John
