From owner-cvs-all@FreeBSD.ORG Mon Jan 26 21:48:42 2004 Return-Path: Delivered-To: cvs-all@freebsd.org Received: from mx1.FreeBSD.org (mx1.freebsd.org [216.136.204.125]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 9E12F16A787; Mon, 26 Jan 2004 21:48:38 -0800 (PST) Received: from smtp.omnis.com (smtp.omnis.com [216.239.128.26]) by mx1.FreeBSD.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id E140F449A7; Mon, 26 Jan 2004 20:50:06 -0800 (PST) (envelope-from wes@softweyr.com) Received: from softweyr.homeunix.net (66-91-236-204.san.rr.com [66.91.236.204]) by smtp-relay.omnis.com (Postfix) with ESMTP id B290510066B; Mon, 26 Jan 2004 20:48:58 -0800 (PST) From: Wes Peters Organization: Softweyr To: Eivind Eklund , Diomidis Spinellis Date: Mon, 26 Jan 2004 20:48:58 -0800 User-Agent: KMail/1.5.4 References: <20040126150550.GA1383@FreeBSD.org> In-Reply-To: <20040126150550.GA1383@FreeBSD.org> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Content-Disposition: inline Message-Id: <200401262048.58375.wes@softweyr.com> cc: cvs-all@FreeBSD.org cc: src-committers@FreeBSD.org cc: Ruslan Ermilov cc: Wes Peters cc: cvs-src@FreeBSD.org cc: Alfred Perlstein cc: Dag-Erling Smorgrav Subject: Re: cvs commit: src/usr.bin/fetch fetch.1 X-BeenThere: cvs-all@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.1 Precedence: list List-Id: CVS commit messages for the entire tree List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Tue, 27 Jan 2004 05:48:43 -0000 On Monday 26 January 2004 07:05 am, Eivind Eklund wrote: > On Sat, Jan 24, 2004 at 11:27:34AM +0200, Diomidis Spinellis wrote: > > Let us not forget that the Unix manual pages provide reference > > material; they are not a user guide. They historically have been > > terse, to the point, and honest in admitting shortcomings (bugs). > > While a user might find it helpful to read the environment variable > > documentation in fetch(1), the correct thing to do in reference > > material is to document the variables where they are implemented, > > namely fetch(3), and provide a cross reference. > > My feeling about this is that we are giving our users a lot of > inconvenience in the search for some kind of "idelogical purity" (in > the form of consistency), where the purity does not buy us much. > Purity should not be a goal in and of itself. Purity is a tool for > making the system as a whole easier to deal with - a powerful, > important and good tool, but a tool. > > I've had repeated cases of support on these variables because users do > not find them. I agree with DES about duplication - I just think that > the variables should be documented in fetch.1 instead of fetch.3. I agree with you in general, Eivind. Have you had a change to read the change I committed? It reads: All environment variables mentioned in the documentation for the fetch(3) library are supported. A number of these are quite important to the proper operation of fetch; you are strongly encouraged to read fetch(3) as well. I hope this is strong enough "encouragement" for them to read the definitive source. -- Where am I, and what am I doing in this handbasket? Wes Peters wes@softweyr.com