Path: utzoo!attcan!lsuc!eci386!woods
From: woods@eci386.uucp (Greg A. Woods)
Newsgroups: comp.unix.misc
Subject: Re: UNIX Documentation (was: '386 Unix Wars)
Keywords: unix, documentation, manual, research, index
Message-ID: <1991Jan9.200617.25296@eci386.uucp>
Date: 9 Jan 91 20:06:17 GMT
References: <276d312d-8aecomp.unix.i386@point.UUCP> <33791527@bfmny0.BFM.COM> <1990Dec28.004756.6019@eci386.uucp> <1990Dec29.045924.656@metapro.DIALix.oz.au> <2856@cirrusl.UUCP>
Reply-To: woods@eci386.UUCP (Greg A. Woods)
Organization: Elegant Communications, Inc.
Lines: 34

In article <2856@cirrusl.UUCP> dhesi%cirrusl@oliveb.ATC.olivetti.com (Rahul Dhesi) writes:
> >>What really baffles me is that people who seem to be reasonably well
> >>educated have such poor research skills.  This is a very bad trend...
> 
> By itself, this is an appropriate comment.  But it completely
> inappropriate as a response to criticism of AT&T's poor documentation.

Excuse me?  Have you read any of AT&T documentation since the 7th
Edition?  I was over-joyed with the advances AT&T made with their
documentation as of Release 3.0, and with 3.2 and 4.0, things are even
better.

As for the index entries, they are the same basic entries as any other
UNIX documentation.  I've even had people complain bitterly to me
about the SunOS(4.0) Global Index, and it's one of the best I've seen.

The problem expressed at the beginning of this thread occured, to the
best of my knowledge, because someone quite experienced with UNIX
forgot that, all the world's *not* a VAX, so to speak.

If you want to complain about poor UNIX documentation in general,
that's a different kettle of fish.

IMHO, AT&T UNIX SysVr3.0 and up have excellent documentation sets,
even in comparison with non-UNIX operating systems.  Then only major
problem I've had is that some SysV vendors don't include the global
permuted index.  Some don't even have a good overview to the doc's.

The basic problem still boils down to research skills.
-- 
							Greg A. Woods
woods@{eci386,gate,robohack,ontmoh,tmsoft}.UUCP		ECI and UniForum Canada
+1-416-443-1734 [h]  +1-416-595-5425 [w]  VE3TCP	Toronto, Ontario CANADA
Political speech and writing are largely the defense of the indefensible-ORWELL