text editors with elinks or links?

[Kirk Reiser]

I am sure there is the odd man page which is not that good
particularly when they wish one to use the info system but in general
man pages are very concise indepth instructions covering the
application it is written for.  Most newbies find them difficult
because they don't usually waste time with verbose bull shit but cover
the points and that's it.  Once a person gets comfortible reading them
one never wants to read more verbose documents in my opinion.

As for comparing documentation between any un*x system with microsoft
products there is no contest Microsoft specializes in writing pages
and pages without saying anything.  Just trying to get the meaning of
an error message in pretty well any Windows app is almost impossible.
Everything in a Un*x/linux system is documented and if all fails
there's always the code to look at for definitive answers.  Sometimes
one needs to do some digging to find the exact documentation but
that's what google and other search facilities are for.

It seems to me that folks often just rather ask a question than to
both learning how to find answers for themselves.  Trust me though it
is much more gratifying to hunt down an answer and learn all the extra
stuff you find while taking the journey.

There are of course times when a person needs to ask questions or find
answers that others have asked in the passed and that is what mailing
list archives and usenet groups are about but finding a keystroke for
example is much easier just looking at the apps configuration
mechanism.  The term RTFM came out of frustration from people having
to answer the same questions over and over and so the answers are
placed in man pages and FAQs.

  Kirk

-- 

Kirk Reiser				The Computer Braille Facility
e-mail: kirk at braille.uwo.ca		University of Western Ontario
phone: (519) 661-3061