Re: [Bug-tar] tar auto detect compression

[Joerg Schilling]

ashley willis <address@hidden> wrote:

> if GNU has anything to do with it, then yes. GNU devs tend to abhor 
> them (according to the gentoo tar man page).
>
> i love the detailed-ness of the tar manual -- but i only look at it 
> online. i abhor info, and generally love man pages. mplayer is a man 
> page i hate, and "info mplayer" just gives the man page. imo, if 
> something is complicated enough, it should have a detailed info/web 
> manual and a simplified man page. otherwise, a man page suffices.

So you are OK with the content but you only read it in the web where you get an 
ypropriate user interface. This proves that the "info" command offers a user 
interface that is not liked by people and that it would be apropriate (besides 
web oages) to better deliver the content via the man command.

The main problem with the info system is that it is worse than man pages in 
terms of allowing people to overlook the document as a whole.

P.S.: Around 1990 some people around RMS claimed that the system of man pages 
cannot correctly describe a program in depth. Since the late 1990s, POSIX 
standard is written in form of man pages and verified that it is even possible 
to use man pages to document things with the accuracy needed by a standard.

Jörg

-- 
 EMail:address@hidden (home) Jörg Schilling D-13353 Berlin
       address@hidden                (uni)  
       address@hidden (work) Blog: http://schily.blogspot.com/
 URL:  http://cdrecord.berlios.de/private/ ftp://ftp.berlios.de/pub/schily