undefined | Better HN

0 pointsvog9y ago0 comments

(NOTE: The parent comment was edited. This response applies to the original parent comment that contained just the command line ("man foo" + EXAMPLE section) and nothing else.)

Wow, I haven't seen such a blunt and unhelpful RFTM comment for a while. This comment is inappropriate in so many ways:

1) The unix systems have an inconsistent documentation mix of man pages, info pages, "-h", "-help", "--help", HTML docs, separate manuals (e.g. Debian Administrator's Handbook) and so on.

2) "man foo" leads to: "No manual entry for foo"

3) "man vi", as well as "man vim" both lead to a manpage that has no EXAMPLES section at all (see https://www.freebsd.org/cgi/man.cgi?query=vi, https://www.freebsd.org/cgi/man.cgi?query=vim)

4) The Vi(m) manpages explain only the command line arguments, not the editor commands. The latter are available by typing ":help" in the editor.

0 comments

swiley9y ago

You don't really need an "examples" section for vim, 90% of the time you just type "vim file" which the usage info probably covers well enough. You only need an "examples" section for something like zip.

vogOP9y ago

> you just type "vim file" which the usage info probably covers well enough

This is wrong. If you just type "vim file", you don't get any usage info, not even in the status line. See also: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13165795

j / k navigate · click thread line to collapse