3 ms·

Because learning from unexplained examples is useless.

• coldtea 6y ago
  Is it? That's how humans learn to speak their language, one of the most complex tasks they need to achieve in their life...
  • mauvehaus 6y ago
    On the other hand, cocking up an unfamiliar phrase in a spoken language doesn't usually result in accidentally killing the listener. I haven't yet had a computer ask for clarification when I used tar or dd in an uncommon and destructive way.
    • coldtea 6y ago
      You don't "have to" use the examples, you can read them as get a feel, and read the captions to find the one that does what you want... Which is faster and probably safer than scanning the documentation for individual flags and hopping you got the nuances right... See, the two cases aren't: (1) Thoroughly study man page -> (2) Become expert at the command's options (3) try command secure in your mastery of it vs (2) Check tldr examples -> (2) try command They're rather: (1) Open man page, (2) scan and skim the man page and the dozens of irrelevant flags, caveats, and obscure options, until you find some flags that look to do what you want, (3) half-read them, (4) try command vs (2) Check tldr examples, (2) find an example that does what you want (which is usually one of the covered use cases) (3) try the command using the example syntax