Re: Removing the manpage requirement for GUI programs?
Le 27/02/2010 22:11, markus schnalke a écrit :
> [2010-02-27 20:06] Josselin Mouette <joss@debian.org>
>>
>> I think it is a waste of time to write manual pages that won't be
>> maintained upstream, and that won't contain more useful information than
>> --help. The purpose of a manual page is to document precisely the
>> behavior of a program, and for GUI applications there is usually an
>> associated GUI documentation instead.
>
> Man pages have one more important advantage: Every command has one.
Which is not true, and the point of the discussion.
>
> Do not underestimate this. On Debian systems, people know, if they
> want to find out how to run a command and what command line options it
> has, they look in its man page, cause every command has one.
Well, no, again. Not every command have one, and not everyone try to
look at them. Especially for GUI program.
>
> If some graphical programs would not provide one, the the user would
> first try to look in the man page and if it does not exist, he needs
> to try --help (maybe he even needs to look for additional
> documentation which would be application specific).
Just speaking for myself, but I *first* run app --help to get some quick
help, and only if I need more specific information I run the about/help
menu item, or the manpage in case of a command line application.
>
> In my eyes, the largest advantage of man pages is that every command
> has one.
So if every command has a manpage, the whole point is moot and we don't
have to discuss it. Thanks :)
--
Yves-Alexis
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