Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!sun-barr!lll-winken!elroy.jpl.nasa.gov!jpl-devvax!lwall
From: lwall@jpl-devvax.JPL.NASA.GOV (Larry Wall)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.perl
Subject: Re: Do be do be do.
Message-ID: <11330@jpl-devvax.JPL.NASA.GOV>
Date: 6 Feb 91 19:01:39 GMT
References: <1991Feb4.012916.7944@uvaarpa.Virginia.EDU> <1991Feb04.015138.28575@convex.com> <4796@ruuinf.cs.ruu.nl>
Reply-To: lwall@jpl-devvax.JPL.NASA.GOV (Larry Wall)
Organization: Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, CA
Lines: 32

In article <4796@ruuinf.cs.ruu.nl> piet@cs.ruu.nl (Piet van Oostrum) writes:
: >>>>> In message <1991Feb04.015138.28575@convex.com>, tchrist@convex.COM (Tom Christiansen) (TC) writes:
: 
: TC> It's in the section entitled ``Simple Statements'' in both the man page
: TC> and the Camel Book (see the top of page 94).  The essential text follows:
: 
: TC>     The loop conditional is evaluation before the expression, except when
: TC>     applied to a do-BLOCK or a do_SUBROUTINE command, in which case the
: TC>     block executes once before the conditional is evaluated.
: 
: As I pointed out before, it is NOT in the man ``page''. The man ``page''
: only says that do-BLOCK has the once-at-least semantics, not do-SUBR.
: Please change this, Larry.

Ok.

: Btw, in case of discrepancy, shouldn't the man ``page'' be the ultimate ref,
: as it is updated more often (presumably).

In some sense, yes.  But the only section of the man page that should
actually be trusted to be more authoritative is the Errata and Addenda
section.  The man page will always remain more cryptic than the book, but
the man page should of course be fixed when it's inaccurate.

: Hmmm... I'm getting tired of writing "``page''" rather than "page". 

If we had to quote all of our metaphors, we'd be in sad shape.  Man pages
departed from being single sheets of paper long ago.  They're only slightly
more closely related than pages of memory.  That page of history in which
we had to quote 'man "page"' is past.

Larry