🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <1991Oct3.103106.4444@nntp.hut.fi> jkp@cs.HUT.FI (Jyrki Kuoppala) writes:
>In article <DJM.91Oct3003216@frob.eng.umd.edu>, djm@eng (David J. MacKenzie) writes:
>>I don't think programs, particularly command line utilities, should
>>have extensive help strings compiled into them.  That's what the Info
>>system is for.  So I am wary of "help" options.  It makes the binaries
>>bloat and is hard to change and browse.  (I do not like bash's builtin help.)

It is IMHO *very* bad style to have a program which does *not* give a
summary of what the command-line arguments do, or at least have some
sort of usage string which gives some sort of an idea, when invalid
arguments are passed.  Both `info' and `man' are a waste of my time if
all I wanted to do was figure out that the option to set the number of
colors in my `lyapunov' program is `-n nColors'.

In general, I think that the FSF is trying to put too much into the
Info system.  I see the present style of info is much more suited to
the comprehensive reference and tutorial type of document, such as the
contents of BSD's USD, UCS, PS1, PS2, and SMM manuals; when I just
want, for example, to quickly find the correct header file and
prototype for getitimer(), I will look at the manual page, thank you,
rather than: 1, load up info; 2, figure out which manual describes
getitimer(); 3, select that manual; 4, figure out which node gives the
header file and calling sequence---assuming that there is such a node;
and 5, change to that node and page through it unil I find the
information would have been listed in the first fifteen lines of the
manual page.

(I should point out that there are some useful non-computer
applications for Info, such as college catalogs and `late-night-food'.
BTW, has anyone noticed that /home/gd/gnu/elisp/elisp makes both info
and xinfo spit up?)

>Has there been specific plans to have a way to call the documentation
>from the shell (or programs)?  Something like:
>
>ls +format<HELP>

That would be even worse, in terms of software bloat.  Besides, I
don't have any key labeled ``help'';  not to mention the fact that
there is no standard way to figure out precisely which node of which
info file explains which options of which program.

-- 
Garrett A. Wollman - wollman@emily.uvm.edu - uvm-gen!wollman

Disclaimer:  I'm not even sure this represents *my* opinion, never
mind UVM's, EMBA's, EMBA-CF's, or indeed anyone else's.