Path: utzoo!attcan!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!rutgers!att!cbnewsh!wcs
From: wcs@cbnewsh.ATT.COM (Bill Stewart 201-949-0705 ho95c.att.com!wcs)
Newsgroups: news.newusers.questions
Subject: Telling people to Read The F Manual (Was: Kill files)
Message-ID: <4086@cbnewsh.ATT.COM>
Date: 21 Sep 89 05:48:07 GMT
References: <14695@bfmny0.UU.NET>
Reply-To: wcs@cbnewsh.ATT.COM (Bill Stewart 201-949-0705 ho95c.att.com!wcs)
Organization: Your typical phone company involved in your typical daydream
Lines: 47

In article <14695@bfmny0.UU.NET> tneff@bfmny0.UU.NET (Tom Neff) writes:
] Readers should take no offense at 'RTFM' answers here, because
] one of the most IMPORTANT lessons for new Usenet users is in fact
] to consult all available offline documentation first, BEFORE posting 

Writers, on the other hand, shouldn't just tell readers to RTFM -
they should tell users where to FIND the fine manual, and what kind
of things to look for, as well as gently:-) reminding them than
manuals exist, both online and offline, and that manuals are for reading.

Not all systems have the decency to install manual pages where the 'man'
command can find them, and users don't always know where to look.
Traditional UNIX manuals are terse, and organized more for finding
something when you know what to look for than hand-holding new users
through a tutorial.  UNIX Tutorials are also terse, and are designed
to get programmers to start hacking and reading the manual.  I like
them, but not every user is a hacker, and non-hackers need to be
told how to use UNIX manuals.  And there keep being all these new
users who are starting from scratch again :-).

(*I* learned UNIX the old-fashioned way - read&try the tutorial to
get a flavor of things, read the ENTIRE manual while thinking about
how other systems (TSO-yuk!) did it, skimmed over stuff that didn't
make sense the first time, tried to do stuff using the obvious commands,
reading the SOURCE CODE to see how other people had solved problems
similar to mine, hacked more (a bit less naively), read the sh
manual pages about 6 more times, and then my new boss told me I was
the administrator for the VAX he'd ordered.  Operating system?
DEC doesn't give us UNIX?  -- at this point I started to *REALLY* learn UNIX.)


] Kill files are used by the 'rn' newsreader package.  They have no
] meaning to the rest of 'news' per se.
	This is a useful kind if thing to tell users, though users
	of rn may have already had the sense to read the manual;
	users of "readnews" may be assuming the manual is just old....

	and if 'man rn' doesn't work, find where your adminsitrator
	put the rn source and look for 'rn.1'.  Hint - it's probably
	not in /usr/src/cmd/rn where it belongs ....

				Bill
-- 
# Bill Stewart, AT&T Bell Labs 4M312 Holmdel NJ 201-949-0705 ho95c.att.com!wcs
# also found at 201-271-4712 tarpon.att.com!wcs Somerset 4C423 Corp. Park 3

# More Colombians die from American tobacco than Americans from Colombian coke.