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Date:      Mon, 16 Jul 2001 09:15:35 -0700 (PDT)
From:      John Baldwin <jhb@FreeBSD.org>
To:        Chad David <davidc@acns.ab.ca>
Cc:        cvs-committers@FreeBSD.org, cvs-all@FreeBSD.org, Dima Dorfman <dima@unixfreak.org>, Alfred Perlstein <alfred@FreeBSD.org>
Subject:   Re: cvs commit: src/share/man/man9 cdevsw_add.9 cdevsw_remove.9
Message-ID:  <XFMail.010716091352.jhb@FreeBSD.org>
In-Reply-To: <20010714235559.A40654@colnta.acns.ab.ca>

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On 15-Jul-01 Chad David wrote:
>> > I agree, having lockmgr.9 contain all the lockmgr related functions, and a
>> > cdevsw.9 would be nice.  It keeps all the related material in one place so
>> > you
>> > can browse an API easily in one place.  See atomic.9, kthread.9, mutex.9,
>> > etc.
>> > as examples of this.
> 
>       I agree that a bunch of the ones I have written could be grouped, but I
>       have to struggle with two evils; one, write every man page on the
subject
>       before I submit any thing or two, create one big page with a bunch of
holes
>       in it and then have to justify that...  What I would prefer to do is
start
>       out with individual pages and then merge them when their bulk begins to
> demand
>       it, or my rewritting the same intro over and over starts to drive me
crazy.

Leaving holes is fine.  The kthread.9 manpage started out as a stub manpage
that basically listed the functions in that group with very little description
of them until more was added later.  Grouping related things together in a
single manpage gives you a handy place to describe general issues for a topic. 
For example, if you document all the vm_page operations in one vm_page.9, then
you can also include in that manpage as the intro a little blurb about what a
vm page is and what it does, etc.  Then just adding the bits for
hold/wire/flags is easy, where as if you have separate manpages for all the
bits then a) you don't have a place for the generic description to go or b) you
duplicate it in all the manpages.

-- 

John Baldwin <jhb@FreeBSD.org> -- http://www.FreeBSD.org/~jhb/
PGP Key: http://www.baldwin.cx/~john/pgpkey.asc
"Power Users Use the Power to Serve!"  -  http://www.FreeBSD.org/

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