when do you usually use the man page for a complex command line tool to answer a question you have?
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i'm very curious about everyone who says "I'd look there first", if I want to figure out how to do something new I think I'll usually google how to do it rather than look at the man page, and then maybe later look at the man page to look up the details
(I've gotten enough of these answers:
- "I like that man pages don't require changing context"
- "with the man page I know I have the right version of the docs")@b0rk I search for tools where I already know the man page is unhelpful (either too small or there's just a million options that make a whole language to learn to do basic stuff).
Which is quite a lot tbh, but I do absolutely start out with the official documentation on practically everything. Answers and mistake-preventions are almost always found in there the quickest, because mistakes consume a ton of time.
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i'm very curious about everyone who says "I'd look there first", if I want to figure out how to do something new I think I'll usually google how to do it rather than look at the man page, and then maybe later look at the man page to look up the details
(I've gotten enough of these answers:
- "I like that man pages don't require changing context"
- "with the man page I know I have the right version of the docs")@b0rk I use apropos first to find the manual pages around the subject. If it doesn't turn up anything, I hit the web (or 'apt-cache search' to see if there are packages that might help me)
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i'm very curious about everyone who says "I'd look there first", if I want to figure out how to do something new I think I'll usually google how to do it rather than look at the man page, and then maybe later look at the man page to look up the details
(I've gotten enough of these answers:
- "I like that man pages don't require changing context"
- "with the man page I know I have the right version of the docs")@b0rk if I’m already at least a little familiar with a tool, I would much rather look at the man page than search online. But this is partially influenced by the fact thay search got worse, but man pages actually did finally get better.
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when do you usually use the man page for a complex command line tool to answer a question you have? (like git, openssl, rsync, curl, etc)
(edit: no need to say "i use --help then man")
@b0rk voted "other"
Usually go for tldr. If needed, man page / --help
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i'm very curious about everyone who says "I'd look there first", if I want to figure out how to do something new I think I'll usually google how to do it rather than look at the man page, and then maybe later look at the man page to look up the details
(I've gotten enough of these answers:
- "I like that man pages don't require changing context"
- "with the man page I know I have the right version of the docs")i think part of the reason I'm feeling interested in man pages right now even though I rarely use them is that search has gotten so much worse, it's frustrating, and it makes it feel more appealing to have trustworthy sources with clear explanations
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when do you usually use the man page for a complex command line tool to answer a question you have? (like git, openssl, rsync, curl, etc)
(edit: no need to say "i use --help then man")
@b0rk when I happen to know it’s a good one (eg curl) - but I still usually read an online HTML version in my browser anyway
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when do you usually use the man page for a complex command line tool to answer a question you have? (like git, openssl, rsync, curl, etc)
(edit: no need to say "i use --help then man")
@b0rk often I'll web search first then if the suggested command has a bunch of parameters I'll check the man page to understand what those all do. I've never felt totally safe trusting that `command -rbSaP` is safe to run lol
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i'm very curious about everyone who says "I'd look there first", if I want to figure out how to do something new I think I'll usually google how to do it rather than look at the man page, and then maybe later look at the man page to look up the details
(I've gotten enough of these answers:
- "I like that man pages don't require changing context"
- "with the man page I know I have the right version of the docs")@b0rk ZFS moves pretty quick, and most blogs have a lot of out dated or incorrect wisdom at this point.
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i'm very curious about everyone who says "I'd look there first", if I want to figure out how to do something new I think I'll usually google how to do it rather than look at the man page, and then maybe later look at the man page to look up the details
(I've gotten enough of these answers:
- "I like that man pages don't require changing context"
- "with the man page I know I have the right version of the docs")@b0rk for me I suppose it’s 1) context switching; I’d rather stay in the terminal; 2) wanting to be sure I’m looking at the right version (e.g. if I’m on a mac, I have BSD coreutils, search often has results for GNU; and now 3) searching for anything these days is such an exercise in frustration, sorting through a bunch of SEO slop blogs to find something actually relevant
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when do you usually use the man page for a complex command line tool to answer a question you have? (like git, openssl, rsync, curl, etc)
(edit: no need to say "i use --help then man")
@b0rk
what's trained me not to use man pages is minimal systems where they aren't installed. I always go for --help first. -
i think part of the reason I'm feeling interested in man pages right now even though I rarely use them is that search has gotten so much worse, it's frustrating, and it makes it feel more appealing to have trustworthy sources with clear explanations
@b0rk I date from the days when man pages were a novelty.
If it doesn't have a man page, it isn't finished.
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when do you usually use the man page for a complex command line tool to answer a question you have? (like git, openssl, rsync, curl, etc)
(edit: no need to say "i use --help then man")
@b0rk it depends on how well I know the tool.
If I’m familiar with the tool and its terminology then the man page is where I go after trying g the --help flag or its equivalent.
For me they are fine reference material, but I usually end up using a search engine…
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when do you usually use the man page for a complex command line tool to answer a question you have? (like git, openssl, rsync, curl, etc)
(edit: no need to say "i use --help then man")
@b0rk using #freebsd and having started on SCO Unix, I’m used to better than average man pages. And I learned sco before the web: so man and Usenet.
—help is my first stop these days.
Knowing how to use man means I can work offline too. So practicing that skill when a fallback is present is a worthy investment
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@b0rk it depends somewhat on the program, and somewhat on what I'm trying to find out.
Man pages are usually good for finding out what an option does, if you already know the name of the option. Not all of them are so good for going in the other direction – if you know _what_ you want to do, and are trying to find out if there's an option that does it, and what it's called. Understandable, because the former is easier to write. But the latter is surely _more_ often what people want!
(Although not 100%. Reading other people's scripts is a common way to find out the name of an option you didn't know and now have to look up what it does.)
Usually I'll try --help before the manual, simply because it's likely to be shorter, so it's quicker to look through all the options and pick out the one I'm likely to want. Maybe if anything's still unclear I'll try the man page and hope it goes into more detail. But of course in some cases they do the same thing anyway: 'git foo --help' is no different from 'man git-foo'.
Of course, if you're starting from some task you want to perform another possibility is that you don't even yet know which _program_ you want to use, in which case a straight-up search engine might be the place to look first, looking for something like a Stack Exchange post that suggests a combination of program and options.
@simontatham @b0rk "... another possibility is that you don't even yet know which _program_ you want to use ..." apropos is your friend, my friend
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i'm very curious about everyone who says "I'd look there first", if I want to figure out how to do something new I think I'll usually google how to do it rather than look at the man page, and then maybe later look at the man page to look up the details
(I've gotten enough of these answers:
- "I like that man pages don't require changing context"
- "with the man page I know I have the right version of the docs")I've been scolded way too often by my systems teacher back in the day that I automatically use --help first, then man <command> then, and in a last resort googling for what I'm trying to do
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@karabaic I've never used openbsd but I'm so curious about the openbsd man page culture because of how people talk about it
do you know if there's anywhere that I can read about the documentation philosophy or about how people relate to it?
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when do you usually use the man page for a complex command line tool to answer a question you have? (like git, openssl, rsync, curl, etc)
(edit: no need to say "i use --help then man")
I voted 'first' because it's close enough; it's usually second after '-?'
(-? is not be a valid argument in many programs, but most dump their usage on an invalid argument, and it's easier than typing --help)
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i think part of the reason I'm feeling interested in man pages right now even though I rarely use them is that search has gotten so much worse, it's frustrating, and it makes it feel more appealing to have trustworthy sources with clear explanations
@b0rk
I tend to look for examples close to what I want to do, or tutorials. I would love if man pages were more consistent in giving clear examples for common use cases. This is much easier to parse quickly than detailed explanations. -
i'm very curious about everyone who says "I'd look there first", if I want to figure out how to do something new I think I'll usually google how to do it rather than look at the man page, and then maybe later look at the man page to look up the details
(I've gotten enough of these answers:
- "I like that man pages don't require changing context"
- "with the man page I know I have the right version of the docs")@b0rk for rsync, find or ls I use the man page. For ffmpeg or imagemagick I use duck duck go
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i'm very curious about everyone who says "I'd look there first", if I want to figure out how to do something new I think I'll usually google how to do it rather than look at the man page, and then maybe later look at the man page to look up the details
(I've gotten enough of these answers:
- "I like that man pages don't require changing context"
- "with the man page I know I have the right version of the docs")@b0rk my experience is that I can often figure out what I need from the man page in one of 3 ways:
- often the first paragraph(ish) co-workers whatever I was confused about
- the EXAMPLES section (usually near the end) often has exactly the example I'd want
- often searching the man page ('/' to search, 'n' for next result) for keywords finds me what I need (another option) pretty fastI'm skewed towards this from years of offline computer use (work on trains with crappy/no wifi, though it started with an offline desktop in my room in high school before wifi was a thing), but also reinforced by recent nonsense in both AI summaries and keyword-spamming sites...
