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From Section 2.2 "The Bad" >> B1: Too arbitrary. The shell’s virtue of limitless composition (G1) is also its vice: the shell can compose arbitrary commands wr

From Section 2.2 "The Bad" >> B1: Too arbitrary. The shell’s virtue of limitless composition (G1) is also its vice: the shell can compose arbitrary commands written in arbitrary languages. This is what I fundamentally love about the shell, and you can try to pry it from my cold, dead fingers >> B3: Too obscure. The semantics of the shell and common commands are documented in 300pp of standardese [7]. With respect to Bash, I couldn't agree more about the 'standardese' gripe. Man pages would be so, so much more useful if they prioritized showing examples of common/useful ways to use the command. I would love a 'man --examples $COMMAND' feature. Does something like that exist?

revscat 5y ago
Yes. tldr: https://tldr.sh/ https://tldr.sh/
- ahub 5y ago
  Or as an alternative with no installation or dependence : `curl cht.sh tar`. Obviously, replace 'tar' by whatever command you see fit. Works on any machine online with curl available.
  - jbotz 5y ago
    That should probably be `curl cht.sh/tar`
sn41 5y ago
I don't recommend this ever, but I of course make this moonshine on my own computer: I usually edit the man page to add cookbook/bugfix sections. Most of them are cookbook-style recipes. Whenever I find out some obscure bug or gotcha out (spaces in file names passed through a pipe is one of my frequent issues), I go to the man page of cut/tr etc. and add it to the page. Next time I man for that, I remember what I did right a couple of years ago. Another thing I copiously modify is the "SEE ALSO" section for common commands, whenever I install new stuff from github etc. I confess that it is not a proper solution, but it works for me. Man pages have continued in the gloriously terse initial style of Ken Thompson. For mere mortals like I, I need a nicer explanation. My machine's manpages for some commands (find, grep being the most modified) tend to look like the old "HOWTO"s on linux.

revscat 5y ago

Yes. tldr: https://tldr.sh/ https://tldr.sh/

ahub 5y ago
Or as an alternative with no installation or dependence : `curl cht.sh tar`. Obviously, replace 'tar' by whatever command you see fit. Works on any machine online with curl available.
- jbotz 5y ago
  That should probably be `curl cht.sh/tar`

sn41 5y ago

I don't recommend this ever, but I of course make this moonshine on my own computer: I usually edit the man page to add cookbook/bugfix sections. Most of them are cookbook-style recipes. Whenever I find out some obscure bug or gotcha out (spaces in file names passed through a pipe is one of my frequent issues), I go to the man page of cut/tr etc. and add it to the page. Next time I man for that, I remember what I did right a couple of years ago. Another thing I copiously modify is the "SEE ALSO" section for common commands, whenever I install new stuff from github etc. I confess that it is not a proper solution, but it works for me. Man pages have continued in the gloriously terse initial style of Ken Thompson. For mere mortals like I, I need a nicer explanation. My machine's manpages for some commands (find, grep being the most modified) tend to look like the old "HOWTO"s on linux.