Date: Mon, 26 Jan 2004 20:48:58 -0800 From: Wes Peters <wes@softweyr.com> To: Eivind Eklund <eivind@FreeBSD.org>, Diomidis Spinellis <dds@aueb.gr> Cc: Dag-Erling Smorgrav <des@FreeBSD.org> Subject: Re: cvs commit: src/usr.bin/fetch fetch.1 Message-ID: <200401262048.58375.wes@softweyr.com> In-Reply-To: <20040126150550.GA1383@FreeBSD.org> References: <20040126150550.GA1383@FreeBSD.org>
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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
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