On Mon, 30 Oct 2000, Ben Leslie wrote:
> Open source is great but advocating being able to the source when the docs
> aren't good isn't really a big plus.
How's this:
1. global peer review is only possible with open source
2. trusting a third parties documentation is very errant; viz. MS
has known "hidden" APIs as well a deliberate misinformation about
semi-public API's to mislead competitors trying to write decent software
on the 'doze plaforms (see the WINE project for the grueling history
of their project work as it relates to MS third-party doco)
3. programmers do *not* document properly, correctly or accurately
4. the only definitive reference to source code is the source code
5. if you cannot refer to the source code, refer to step (2) above,
cross your fingers and hope what you are reading is accurate
> (PS. If you have made and submitted a patch to the documenation, then I will
> take it all back and admit it is a good thing (tm) ;)
Humble pie: I re-read the first paragaph of the rcp man page.
Here it is in B&W:
Rcp copies files between machines. Each file or directory argument is
either a remote file name of the form ``rname@rhost:path'', or a local
file name (containing no `:' characters, or a `/' before any `:'s).
Doh!
--
Rick Welykochy || Praxis Services
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