Date: Thu, 13 Dec 2001 06:30:06 +0100 From: "Anthony Atkielski" <anthony@freebie.atkielski.com> To: "Cliff Sarginson" <cliff@raggedclown.net>, <questions@FreeBSD.ORG> Subject: Re: Peeking over the parapet [ Was Re: /etc/hosts file ? FBSD doc suck ] Message-ID: <003401c18397$39991a80$0a00000a@atkielski.com> References: <15383.50879.147812.912148@guru.mired.org> <009001c18351$54adf200$0a00000a@atkielski.com> <20011213005255.GA9242@raggedclown.net>
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Cliff writes: > The man page on hosts. > It assumes you know what an Ip address is, what > a host/domain name is and what the word alias means. Yes, so it's not very useful to someone who doesn't know these things, and since the handbook is written at roughly the same level, there isn't really any readily accessible source of online information concerning the file. This is typical for just about everything under UNIX, not just the use of /etc/hosts. > It is not a tutorial on IP addressing, name > resolution, domains, IP dotted-quad notation > etc. There are dozens of books on that, and you > don't need a BSD specific one. It's not practical to buy a different book for every configuration file, and sometimes you just need the answer quickly, and preferably online. > Would you expect a man page on bunzip2 to give > you all the mathematics involved in it's > compression algorithms ? No, but if that's what you are looking for, you may have a very hard time finding it. > If a man page is opaque, then offer a rewrite of > it ... I haven't figured out how the formatting language for man pages works yet. I also need to concentrate more on finding ways to actually make money, as I've nearly gone broke with pro bono work. > ... all the time you spend (and you know who > *you* are) lecturing everyone on this list could > be better spent doing that, i.e. something useful. I think you may underestimate the amount of time required to write good documentation. > Some people have to pay for connection time to > download this horse-shit before they confine it to > the dustbin it belongs in. Life is tough. There isn't any way to censor the entire Internet in order to ensure that each of us receives only the messages he wants to see. The only practical course of action is to delete what you don't want to read. To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-questions" in the body of the message
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