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From: tih@barsoom.nhh.no (Tom Ivar Helbekkmo)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac.misc
Subject: Re: UNIX is yuck (was Re: Next intro...)
Message-ID: <1990Oct9.094857.25894@barsoom.nhh.no>
Date: 9 Oct 90 09:48:57 GMT
References: <1990Oct9.003852.18788@oswego.Oswego.EDU> <1990Oct9.040256.12082@d.cs.okstate.edu>
Organization: Norwegian School of Economics
Lines: 25

minich@d.cs.okstate.edu (Robert Minich) writes:

      I'll disagree here. I personally agonize when I have to dig into the
    UNIX man pages to track down exactly what I need to know to use a
    routine. The description is usually only useful as a reference for
    someone who already understands the routine and is just about useless to
    those who, like me, don't. Now, admittedly I've spent plenty of time
    staring at IM but I've never gotten the feeling that "gee, I wish I
    they would explain their explanations." Sure, some concepts may not come
    easily but IM tends to be a lot more verbose the UNIX manuals. 

That may be so, but you're comparing apples (no pun intended) and oranges.
There's no equivalent of the on-line man pages on the Mac, excepting the
Inside Macintosh DA that's in the public domain.  The IM books should not
be compared with the on-line man-pages, but rather with the many different
books about the Unix operating system that are available.  You'll easily
be able to find very good books that show you how to interface to the Unix
system calls etc as clearly as IM does for the Mac.

After all, IM doesn't come free with the Mac, right?

-tih
-- 
Tom Ivar Helbekkmo, NHH, Bergen, Norway.  Telephone: +47-5-959205
tih@barsoom.nhh.no, thelbekk@norunit.bitnet, edb_tom@debet.nhh.no