Date: Mon, 26 Jan 2004 07:05:51 -0800 From: Eivind Eklund <eivind@FreeBSD.org> To: Diomidis Spinellis <dds@aueb.gr> Cc: Dag-Erling Smorgrav <des@FreeBSD.org> Subject: Re: cvs commit: src/usr.bin/fetch fetch.1 Message-ID: <20040126150550.GA1383@FreeBSD.org> In-Reply-To: <40123A86.3040102@aueb.gr>
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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. Eivind.
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