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cheat.sh [0] has been a godsend when the man pages are too dense and I just want to use the tool and move on with my life. [0] http://cheat.sh/ http://cheat.sh

cheat.sh [0] has been a godsend when the man pages are too dense and I just want to use the tool and move on with my life. [0] http://cheat.sh/ http://cheat.sh/

ryandrake 3y ago
I always thought man pages are not only too dense, but they put things in the wrong order. When I look up a man page I'm almost always trying to accomplish some task, so I am looking for instructions on how to do that task. But where are most EXAMPLES sections? At the very end or buried in the middle, if they exist at all! Look at the sections in a typical man page: NAME - Totally useless. I know what the name is, I just typed it in SYNOPSIS - Explains the syntax and grammar of the command line options in an abstract way [OPTION...] HOST:SRC, and so on. Great if you're deeply studying the tool to learn all the edge cases of running it. Not as helpful if you want to do some specific thing. DESCRIPTION - Pretty much marketing prose by the man page author. Useless. OPTONS - Detailed, usually alphabetical(!!) list of each command line options. Great as a reference or if you want to know exactly what action X that known option Y does, but useless the other way around (I want to find the option Y that does known action X). ENVIRONMENT - Interesting trivia about how the environment affects (or is affected by) the command. EXAMPLES - THERE WE GO, THIS IS WHAT WE USUALLY WANT. COMPATIBILITY - Interesting detail if you're on a weird platform or up against the edges of where the command is supported. SEE ALSO - Useful if you don't even know which command you want. STANDARDS - Nerd alert! You only care about this if you care what IEEE Std 1003.1-2001 is. HISTORY - Yawn. BUGS - Useful to know if it's not doing what you expect.
- LordShredda 3y ago
  I on the other hand am absolutely grateful for all the 'trivia' they throw in the manpages especially when trying to fix a problem withy system. It's the people that run into edge cases you want to help.

cheat.sh [0] has been a godsend when the man pages are too dense and I just want to use the tool and move on with my life. [0] http://cheat.sh/ http://cheat.sh/

ryandrake 3y ago

I always thought man pages are not only too dense, but they put things in the wrong order. When I look up a man page I'm almost always trying to accomplish some task, so I am looking for instructions on how to do that task. But where are most EXAMPLES sections? At the very end or buried in the middle, if they exist at all! Look at the sections in a typical man page: NAME - Totally useless. I know what the name is, I just typed it in SYNOPSIS - Explains the syntax and grammar of the command line options in an abstract way [OPTION...] HOST:SRC, and so on. Great if you're deeply studying the tool to learn all the edge cases of running it. Not as helpful if you want to do some specific thing. DESCRIPTION - Pretty much marketing prose by the man page author. Useless. OPTONS - Detailed, usually alphabetical(!!) list of each command line options. Great as a reference or if you want to know exactly what action X that known option Y does, but useless the other way around (I want to find the option Y that does known action X). ENVIRONMENT - Interesting trivia about how the environment affects (or is affected by) the command. EXAMPLES - THERE WE GO, THIS IS WHAT WE USUALLY WANT. COMPATIBILITY - Interesting detail if you're on a weird platform or up against the edges of where the command is supported. SEE ALSO - Useful if you don't even know which command you want. STANDARDS - Nerd alert! You only care about this if you care what IEEE Std 1003.1-2001 is. HISTORY - Yawn. BUGS - Useful to know if it's not doing what you expect.

LordShredda 3y ago
I on the other hand am absolutely grateful for all the 'trivia' they throw in the manpages especially when trying to fix a problem withy system. It's the people that run into edge cases you want to help.