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From: jab@uokvax.UUCP
Newsgroups: net.flame
Subject: Re: May be offensive to UNIX Users - PLE - (nf)
Message-ID: <2200055@uokvax.UUCP>
Date: Mon, 16-Jul-84 18:03:00 EDT
Article-I.D.: uokvax.2200055
Posted: Mon Jul 16 18:03:00 1984
Date-Received: Sat, 21-Jul-84 04:24:19 EDT
References: <2404@decwrl.UUCP>
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Nf-From: uokvax!jab    Jul 16 17:03:00 1984

#R:decwrl:-240400:uokvax:2200055:000:1155
uokvax!jab    Jul 16 17:03:00 1984

/***** uokvax:net.flame / ihuxi!jaczak /  4:10 pm  Jul 14, 1984 */

The reason that you see no books about VMS is that the people at DEC have heard
of something that will come as a mild shock to UN*X people. It is called

				DOCUMENTATION!!

/*****************/

Bull. There are many examples of bad Unix documentation, but it is ridiculous
to hold up VMS documentation (or MVS documentation) as "the way that things
should be". You're just fooling yourselves.

It seems to be true that Unix documentation is written for programmers by
programmers, and the underlying assumption that the reader has access to
the source. The general direction of the Unix documentation needs to be
changed from "manual pages" to something a little more thorough, but imitating
the RMS documentation from VMS is NOT the way to go.

Try giving a casual user who knows C (on Unix) or Fortran (on VMS) the
assignment to "write a program that creates a file that has the word
'plugh' in it, following the documentation." On VMS, using RMS, you're
dead, since the documentation swamps you with no USEFUL examples. On Unix,
you stand a fighting chance.

	Jeff Bowles
	Lisle, IL