----- Original Message ----- From: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: "Greg Kettmann" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Cc: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>; "Mansur, Warren" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>; "Ray Bowles" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>; "Bruce Dawson" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>; <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Sent: Wednesday, February 13, 2002 5:19 PM Subject: Re: Interesting Newbie article at CentraLUG.org
> > In a message dated: Tue, 12 Feb 2002 19:48:49 EST > Greg Kettmann said: > > >Sorry to pipe in, but I must. The fact is that the learning / use curve of > >Linux, particularly compared to Windows, is very high. > > Yes, that's absolutely true. But look at the reason why! What were > they each designed to do? > > Windows designed from the outset to be a SINGLE user system > primarily for office suite use. Every other use of > Windows is a side benefit or add-on usage. > > UNIX designed from the outset to be a multi-tasking, > multi-user SERVER that can do ANYTHING. > Yes but so was VMS, and as someone else mentioned, they had an excellent help system. The two are not mutually exclusive. It's just that VMS was developed in a structured environment, whereas Linux was not? What does this mean? It simply proves the point that programmers don't like to do documentation. :oP > By nature you ought to expect UNIX and by extension, Linux, to be > more complicated. UNIX was never meant to be a desktop OS, it was > designed in the days before anyone could ever conceive of such a > thing! > > >They often lack real world examples as well. > > Keep in mind, 'man' stands for 'manual', which is short for > "Reference Manual"!!!! Show me any reference manual which contains a > variety of real world examples. Does Gray's Anatomy have a "real > world example" of how to remove a kidney? No, it's a reference, > that's it, plain and simple. You want real world examples, you get a > HOWTO book with pictures and explanations. Right, the man pages are a reference work. That's the way I have always considered them. You don't start reading the reference section of a programmers manual to learn a new language, do you? Of course not. Man pages are NOT a help system. For the CLI, there IS NO HELP SYSTEM. It's as simple as that. [snip rest of stuff I don't care to comment on] Rich Cloutier President, C*O SYSTEM SUPPORT SERVICES www.sysupport.com ***************************************************************** To unsubscribe from this list, send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the text 'unsubscribe gnhlug' in the message body. *****************************************************************
