Bug#368328: closed by Andreas Metzler <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> (Re: Bug#368328: which options are the most important?)
On Sun, May 21, 2006 at 11:05:26PM +0100, Frederik Eaton wrote: > 3.5 seems useful too. I think the three options mentioned there (-bm, > -bs, -bS) should be up at the top of the man page, maybe with the same > explanatory text. I have been an exim user since 1998, and I do not remember ever having used -bm, -bs and/or -bS. For me, the most important option is -bt, followed by -oMr and -M. See, three people, three opinions. Additionally, the man page is generated upstream automatically from the exim specification, and I doubt that upstream is going to change that. If you want to learn about exim, I'd suggest Philip's excellent book published by UIT, which is more of a tutorial than a reference. > But if I (1) know that I want to run the exim > command, for instance I have a message that I want to send with it, Exim is a drop-in replacement for /usr/lib/sendmail, and if you use that, you'd get the bonus of being portable. > but (2) I don't know the exact options to use; then the man page seems > like a reasonable place to look. In exim's case, it is practically > useless I disagree. grep exists. >- the few options which comprise 99% of all uses are buried > deep within the man page. I disagree. > It would be good to have this information somewhere in the man page. Send a patch upstream. > Sure, you get *some* order by listing things alphabetically; so I > don't understand your aversion to having *more* order. Is order good, > or what? Maybe having order is good when it's useful for defending > your position, but not mine? Order is relative. Greetings Marc -- - Marc Haber | "I don't trust Computers. They | Mailadresse im Header Mannheim, Germany | lose things."Winona Ryder | Fon: *49 621 72739834 Nordisch by Nature | How to make an American Quilt | Fax: *49 621 72739835 -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Bug#368328: closed by Andreas Metzler <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> (Re: Bug#368328: which options are the most important?)
On Sun, May 21, 2006 at 08:49:03PM +0200, Andreas Metzler wrote: > On 2006-05-21 Frederik Eaton <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > >>> The exim4 man page doesn't say which command-line options are the most > >>> important. > > >>> The options are listed in alphabetical order, so I don't know in which > >>> order to read them to start learning about exim. > > >> You should not read the manpage to "start learning about exim", the > >> manpage is just a short reference, not a manual. Read > >> /usr/share/doc/exim4-base/spec.txt.gz or > >> /usr/share/doc/exim4-doc-html/html/index.html if you want to learn > >> about exim. > > > Yes, it looks like spec.txt.gz is a good way to learn about exim... if > > I want to learn about the whole thing, in every excruciating detail, > > from start to finish. > > You'd start with chapter 3, probably "3.13 Delivery in detail", then > read "7. The default configuration file". After that you'd have a > basic understanding. 3.5 seems useful too. I think the three options mentioned there (-bm, -bs, -bS) should be up at the top of the man page, maybe with the same explanatory text. > > I also notice that the command-line options are alphabetized in that > > document as well. > > > I don't think you're honestly considering the merits of my suggestion. > > I really, honestly cannot see how anybody could start learning by > consulting the list of command-line options. The key things to know > are > > 1. What routers and transports do. > 2. How ACLs work (If you can talk SMTP by telnet you are set). > 3. Basic string expansion and lookups (lsearch), aka > the-lots-of-curly-braces-thing. > 4. Where to find further documentation. Obviously for an MTA there is a lot more to understand than the command line interface. But if I (1) know that I want to run the exim command, for instance I have a message that I want to send with it, but (2) I don't know the exact options to use; then the man page seems like a reasonable place to look. In exim's case, it is practically useless - the few options which comprise 99% of all uses are buried deep within the man page. > [...] > >>I am quite familiar with exim but given two options I really cannot > >>tell which one is more important (Is -d or -qqf more important?), I > >>could probably order them into "used often", "internal" and > >>"everything else", but thats not useful. > > > That would be very useful indeed. Could you do that? > > It is not useful. Usually the only options you'll need are: > > - invoke with -oi -oem for piping (possible -t) > - start daemon with -bd -q15m > - Force queue-run with -qff > - -b* to test stuff > - Debug with -d It would be good to have this information somewhere in the man page. > For everything else you'll usually just end up refering to the > option > a) because some other piece of documentation refered to it. (In which > case alphabetical order is the most usable one.) > b) you are searching for an option that does X. In that case you'll > need to search for X using less, google, whatever. > > The alphabetic order also groups similar options together, as for > example all testiong options start with -b, so is not just a mess. Sure, you get *some* order by listing things alphabetically; so I don't understand your aversion to having *more* order. Is order good, or what? Maybe having order is good when it's useful for defending your position, but not mine? Frederik -- http://ofb.net/~frederik/ -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Bug#368328: closed by Andreas Metzler <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> (Re: Bug#368328: which options are the most important?)
On 2006-05-21 Frederik Eaton <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: >>> The exim4 man page doesn't say which command-line options are the most >>> important. >>> The options are listed in alphabetical order, so I don't know in which >>> order to read them to start learning about exim. >> You should not read the manpage to "start learning about exim", the >> manpage is just a short reference, not a manual. Read >> /usr/share/doc/exim4-base/spec.txt.gz or >> /usr/share/doc/exim4-doc-html/html/index.html if you want to learn >> about exim. > Yes, it looks like spec.txt.gz is a good way to learn about exim... if > I want to learn about the whole thing, in every excruciating detail, > from start to finish. You'd start with chapter 3, probably "3.13 Delivery in detail", then read "7. The default configuration file". After that you'd have a basic understanding. > I also notice that the command-line options are alphabetized in that > document as well. > I don't think you're honestly considering the merits of my suggestion. I really, honestly cannot see how anybody could start learning by consulting the list of command-line options. The key things to know are 1. What routers and transports do. 2. How ACLs work (If you can talk SMTP by telnet you are set). 3. Basic string expansion and lookups (lsearch), aka the-lots-of-curly-braces-thing. 4. Where to find further documentation. [...] >>I am quite familiar with exim but given two options I really cannot >>tell which one is more important (Is -d or -qqf more important?), I >>could probably order them into "used often", "internal" and >>"everything else", but thats not useful. > That would be very useful indeed. Could you do that? It is not useful. Usually the only options you'll need are: - invoke with -oi -oem for piping (possible -t) - start daemon with -bd -q15m - Force queue-run with -qff - -b* to test stuff - Debug with -d For everything else you'll usually just end up refering to the option a) because some other piece of documentation refered to it. (In which case alphabetical order is the most usable one.) b) you are searching for an option that does X. In that case you'll need to search for X using less, google, whatever. The alphabetic order also groups similar options together, as for example all testiong options start with -b, so is not just a mess. cu andreas -- The 'Galactic Cleaning' policy undertaken by Emperor Zhark is a personal vision of the emperor's, and its inclusion in this work does not constitute tacit approval by the author or the publisher for any such projects, howsoever undertaken.(c) Jasper Ffforde -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Bug#368328: closed by Andreas Metzler <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> (Re: Bug#368328: which options are the most important?)
> > The exim4 man page doesn't say which command-line options are the most > > important. > > > The options are listed in alphabetical order, so I don't know in which > > order to read them to start learning about exim. > > You should not read the manpage to "start learning about exim", the > manpage is just a short reference, not a manual. Read > /usr/share/doc/exim4-base/spec.txt.gz or > /usr/share/doc/exim4-doc-html/html/index.html if you want to learn > about exim. Yes, it looks like spec.txt.gz is a good way to learn about exim... if I want to learn about the whole thing, in every excruciating detail, from start to finish. I also notice that the command-line options are alphabetized in that document as well. I don't think you're honestly considering the merits of my suggestion. What if I want to *start* learning about exim? What if I just want to know how to, say (*gasp*) _do_ something with it? Something simple? Without reading a novel? Without getting a professional certification? > ... > > So that leaves me wondering why it was decided to list the command > > line options in alphabetical order in the manual page. > > > Because > a) it is just a short reference It's NOT short. > b) "importance" does not provide complete ordering of options. So what? It's better than alphabetical order. >I am quite familiar with exim but given two options I really cannot >tell which one is more important (Is -d or -qqf more important?), I >could probably order them into "used often", "internal" and >"everything else", but thats not useful. That would be very useful indeed. Could you do that? Frederik -- http://ofb.net/~frederik/ -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Bug#368328: which options are the most important?
Package: exim4 Version: 4.50-8 Severity: normal The exim4 man page doesn't say which command-line options are the most important. The options are listed in alphabetical order, so I don't know in which order to read them to start learning about exim. This is especially frustrating since there are so many options and they all seem to refer to each other. Furthermore, if I want to find documentation on a particular option, I will use the text search functionality of my pager to search for it, and I think most other users will do the same. Therefore the most common reason for listing items in alphabetical order, namely so that readers of paper literature can use a binary search to find a particular item, doesn't apply here. Whereas if the options would be described in order of importance, then that would provide a natural progression in which people could learn about the command. And even if it were necessary to print the manual page on paper at some point, I think it would still be better to have a pedagogical ordering of the options, and to just include an alphabetized index at the end of the document. So that leaves me wondering why it was decided to list the command line options in alphabetical order in the manual page. -- Package-specific info: Exim version 4.50 #1 built 27-May-2005 08:08:19 Copyright (c) University of Cambridge 2004 Berkeley DB: Sleepycat Software: Berkeley DB 4.2.52: (December 3, 2003) Support for: iconv() IPv6 GnuTLS Lookups: lsearch wildlsearch nwildlsearch iplsearch cdb dbm dbmnz dsearch nis nis0 passwd Authenticators: cram_md5 plaintext Routers: accept dnslookup ipliteral manualroute queryprogram redirect Transports: appendfile/maildir/mailstore autoreply lmtp pipe smtp Fixed never_users: 0 Configuration file is /var/lib/exim4/config.autogenerated -- System Information: Debian Release: testing/unstable APT prefers unstable APT policy: (500, 'unstable'), (500, 'testing'), (500, 'stable'), (1, 'experimental') Architecture: i386 (i686) Shell: /bin/sh linked to /bin/bash Kernel: Linux 2.6.14-1-k7 Locale: LANG=en_US.UTF-8, LC_CTYPE=en_US.UTF-8 (charmap=UTF-8) Versions of packages exim4 depends on: ii exim4-base4.50-8 support files for all exim MTA (v4 ii exim4-daemon-light4.50-8 lightweight exim MTA (v4) daemon exim4 recommends no packages. -- no debconf information -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
