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From: jjones@cs.uiuc.edu (Joel Jones)
Newsgroups: comp.unix.misc
Subject: Complete Man Pages (was Re: UNIX Documentation)
Keywords: unix, documentation, manual, research, index
Message-ID: <1991Jan10.172329.13247@julius.cs.uiuc.edu>
Date: 10 Jan 91 17:23:29 GMT
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This brings to mind an interesting idea that I have had for a long time.  Many
of us, no doubt, have been called upon to program more than one flavor of Unix
at one time or another.  Wouldn't it be nice if there was _one_ set of manuals
that could be used for all major variants?  What I have in mind would be man
pages that would have marked with sidebars the areas in which the semantics
and syntax of the command varied from one version to another.  Such a set of
manuals would be particularly useful for consultants.  What do others think?
Is this something a major publisher would want to publish?  Part of the problem
also would be that some vendors might consider use of the information in their
manuals as a derived work and subject to their copyright.
  Joel Jones
  jjones@uiuc.edu
-- 
Joel Jones      As the advertisment for an exhibition on Leonardo da Vinci said,
jjones@uiuc.edu "They called him a genius, a botanist, a demon, a philosopher, a
                 practical joker, an eccentric, and a visionary.  No wonder he 
                 was such a great engineer."