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From: glenn@heaven.woodside.ca.us (Glenn Reid)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.next
Subject: Re: neat feature in "more"
Message-ID: <437@heaven.woodside.ca.us>
Date: 26 Feb 91 23:57:19 GMT
References: <AHUMANBEING.91Feb26082659@earth.planet.universe>
Sender: glenn@heaven.woodside.ca.us
Lines: 37

aHumanBeing@earth.planet.universe writes
> In article <435@heaven.woodside.ca.us> glenn@heaven.woodside.ca.us writes:
>>    I found out that if you hit 'o' while you're in more(1), the file
>>    that you're currently viewing will be opened in Edit.  Pretty neat.
>>    Just thought some of you might want to know about this.
> 
> great. now people can wipe out their man pages. real helpful. thanks.

I appreciate your brevity in posting, but not so much your approach.  I  
especially dislike sarcasm when it stems from misinformation or laziness in  
research.

You can't wipe out your man pages through this helpful feature for several  
reasons:

    1.  The files are not writable by normal users.  If you log in
	routinely as root and wipe out anything, I don't feel too sorry
	for you.
    2.  The pages that are displayed by "man" are the output of the nroff
	filters that format the real man page data for the screen.  If
	these files are deleted, it's no big deal; they are automatically
	re-created if you ask for the man page again.
    3.  Even though the files are opened in Edit, you have to acutally make
	substantive changes and Save the documents in order for the man
	pages to be "wiped out".  Most people would not do this on purpose,
	and it doesn't represent a very real problem.  In the words of a
	famous computer scientist, "all power tools can kill."

You should also delete your news-posting software, since it has a forged  
posting address (earth.planet.universe).  I suppose it's easier to flame people  
when no one can see who you are (cs.utexas.edu!helios!aHumanBeing, indeed).

Here's who I am:
--
 Glenn Reid				RightBrain Software
 glenn@heaven.woodside.ca.us		NeXT/PostScript developers
 ..{adobe,next}!heaven!glenn		415-851-1785 (fax 851-1470)