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0 pointschipdart1y ago0 comments

> Uh, what? What man pages are you reading?

Every single man page out there leads to a user experience that is at best subpar.

> One of the reasons Stack Overflow is so popular is that people who can't/won't read docs can use it to have answers spoonfed to them (...)

Pause and look at what you're saying. Your only criticism of SO is how it improves the task of providing meaningful information to users.

The way you opt to spin improvements to user experience as "spoonfed" speaks volumes of your inability to understand the problem and the value you place on gratuitous ladder-pulling. You even contradict your remarks on man pages.

> Reading isn't a singular skill— each genre requires its own skills (...)

No. Writing is a skill. Producing content that the target audience is able to consume and brings value is a skill. The moment you, as a end-user, feel the need to hunker down and decipher arcane texts is the moment you should realize the documentation is bad.

Again, Stack overflow is widely used as ad-hoc crowd-sourced documentation for a reason. Some project maintainers even go as far as to make it their own channel to provide technical support. Why so? Do you honestly believe its because the whole world is not smart enough to read man pages?

Again, those who do not waste their time on man pages are the smart ones who put their own time to better use.

0 comments

sgarland1y ago

> Your only criticism of SO is how it improves the task of providing meaningful information to users... the value you place on gratuitous ladder-pulling

How is wanting others to learn ladder-pulling? Also, how do you assume people will have this kind of information handed to them when the people who are interested in deeply learning stop doing so, die off, etc.? If you say AI, first of all, best of luck with the hallucinations, but secondly, who is going to work on and train the AI?

> No. Writing is a skill. Producing content that the target audience is able to consume and brings value is a skill. The moment you, as an end-user, feel the need to hunker down and decipher arcane texts is the moment you should realize the documentation is bad.

I think I see the root disagreement here. You continue to mention "value," as though reading is itself not valuable. Sitting down to read a work of fiction arguably brings no value to anyone (except perhaps the author and publisher), yet millions do it anyway. Similarly, if I find a way to do something, I usually want to know if there are also other ways, and if so, if they're better. There's not much "value" there most of the time, but it brings me happiness, and enhances my knowledge of the subject.

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