Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP
Posting-Version: version B 2.10.1a 12/4/83; site rlgvax.UUCP
Path: utzoo!linus!vaxine!wjh12!genrad!decvax!ittvax!dcdwest!sdcsvax!sdcrdcf!hplabs!hao!seismo!rlgvax!guy
From: guy@rlgvax.UUCP
Newsgroups: net.unix-wizards
Subject: Re: Undocumented feature in Sys5: synchronous write
Message-ID: <1950@rlgvax.UUCP>
Date: Fri, 25-May-84 21:50:46 EDT
Article-I.D.: rlgvax.1950
Posted: Fri May 25 21:50:46 1984
Date-Received: Mon, 28-May-84 06:11:22 EDT
References: <267@pcsbst.UUCP> <1942@rlgvax.UUCP> <517@ihuxj.UUCP>
Organization: CCI Office Systems Group, Reston, VA
Lines: 36

> Unless we write Modification Requests (MRs) on the "poor" documentation
> in System V and System V Release 2, it will probably never get fixed.
> Simply complaining about it via netnews will NOT make it any better.

> When we see some bad documentation (this goes for bugs, too),
> MR it, preferably with a fix described in the MR.

> System V Release 1 users, (5.0, etc), see TROUBLE(1).
> System V Release 2 users, see TRENTER(1).

> Let's do us all a favor and MR those problems.

Well, our machine is running a 4.1c/S3 hybrid, but I gave a look at
(/ux/s5)/usr/man/man1/trouble.1, and it gives nice directions and refers,
in the FILES section, to various things in "/usr/lib/trouble".  Well,
there's no (/ux/s5)/bin/trouble, no (/ux/s5)/usr/bin/trouble, and no
(/ux/s5)/usr/lib/trouble.  (/ux/s5 holds a complete copy of the S5 VAX-11
distribution on one of our machines.)  OK, how do I post an MR on the absence
of the MR-posting software on our system?

Also, the problem is not that various bits of UNIX are undocumented.  The
problem is that there seems to be a general philosophy (not just at AT&T,
so I'm not just beating you up) that "the real documentation is in the code"
and that it's not critical that the documentation catch up to the code.
That ain't gonna get fixed by posting MRs, unless you can post an MR (and
duplicate it to Berkeley and probably to tons of UNIX vendors out there) saying
"Hey guys, why not track down all these little treasures and 1) finish
implementing them