Re: man or info?
Glen Lee Edwards wrote:
> On Thursday 20 June 2002 10:02 am, W. Paul Mills wrote:
> > cjwatson@debian.org (Colin Watson) writes:
> > > To summarize somewhat, perhaps unfairly, the GNU Project seems to
> > > believe that providing a complete detailed manual is always
> > > preferable to providing a reference card; the Debian Project
> > > observes that not all upstream authors have the time or inclination
> > > for a complete manual and, all other things being equal, prefers to
> > > have some reasonable documentation for most things than excellent
> > > documentation for a few and poor documentation for most.
> > >
> > > Man pages are things that both authors and readers can pick up
> > > quickly. I'm in the habit of using info for a very few GNU packages
> > > (make, autoconf, and the libc being prime examples), but given the
> > > choice I still prefer a quick 'man foo'.
> >
> > Seems like I never can find what I want in info. Man pages are
> > much easier. Then again a friendlier info browser might help.
> >
> > Paul
>
> Info isn't intuitive enough to be of practical value. You can't quickly
> sit down, search for what you need, and then go on. You have to
> memorize a bunch of key strokes that are easily forgotten. I only use
> info if I'm desperate.
>
> Glen
Surprisingly, there are actually only a few keys needed to get around in
info for most tasks. Once I read the instructions, it was very easy.
Fortunately there is info for info, and it has a tutorial.
I think that info is very well suited for complex programs, or large
programs, that require lengthy documentation. Any hierarchical
representation of the online help is of practical value. Maybe info is
overkill for small programs. I'm not sure. Certainly programs that fit
the "do one thing well" category should have a decent man page. It is
what an administrator would expect to see. But that doesn't mean it
would be not useful to have a more lengthy help discussion in info for
reading when one is desiring more understanding of the program. I've
come to expect a man page to just tell me the program parameters and
basic information, including pointers to more authoritative
documentation, so I can recall the programs interface. When I want to
research the program, I will always hope there would be info or a
postscript document, not a man page. Both man and info are very useful.
It would be a pity to see projects try to side with one or the other.
Wsmake is not a very large program, but I make documentation a paramount
aspect of it. It's good engineering for any task. For documentation I
place most importance at the LaTeX level manuals and then second for
info and man.
--
Mike Brownlow
Research Assistant - AI Lab - UTA
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