Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: version B 2.10.2 9/18/84; site brl-tgr.ARPA Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!burl!ulysses!allegra!bellcore!decvax!genrad!teddy!panda!talcott!harvard!seismo!brl-tgr!tgr!nmm%cl.cam@ucl-cs.arpa From: Nick Maclaren Newsgroups: net.unix Subject: Does anyone know of a HELP system for UNIX? Message-ID: <7685@brl-tgr.ARPA> Date: Thu, 24-Jan-85 18:03:00 EST Article-I.D.: brl-tgr.7685 Posted: Thu Jan 24 18:03:00 1985 Date-Received: Wed, 30-Jan-85 04:48:41 EST Sender: news@brl-tgr.ARPA Organization: Ballistic Research Lab Lines: 44 Does anyone know of a HELP system for UNIX? Is there a a decent, extensive (and preferably maintained) HELP system for UNIX around? This should be keyword driven, if possible, but a well-written menu one would do. It is the database that is wanted, as the program is a negligible part of the system. We are interested in a HELP system to enable an 'ordinary' user (who has no interest in computing for its own sake) to use UNIX after a few hours instruction, without having to call for help or search through the manual every few minutes. This would enable one UNIX guru to stay half-sane while advising hundreds of users. For example, "help deleting files" should say that the "rm" command can be used, but may cross-reference other information. "help segmentation error" should describe what that message actually means, and what programming errors normally cause it. "help how do I create a file" should describe how files are created, and not that the "how" command does not exist. A good HELP system will also include examples of how to use commands, warnings of common problems, and so on. It will not always type these, but will prompt the user in terms like: "Would you like more information? The subjects available are:". The fundamental nature of a HELP system is that it attempts to describe things in the user's terms. We have such a HELP database for our fairly user-friendly system built on top of IBM MVS (sic); I estimate that the database took us about 10 man-years to write and is cheap at the price. It is very doubtful that we could repeat this effort for UNIX, or could afford to support UNIX (for a potential 500 users per computing service adviser) without this. If anyone is thinking along the lines of "man -k", "learn", anything involving "grep" or an online version of "XYZ's noddy guide to UNIX", please can they not reply to this question. These are not relevant to the requirement I am talking about. Please reply to: nmm%uk.ac.cam.cl@ucl-cs.arpa or: nmm1%uk.ac.cam.phx%uk.ac.cam-icf@ucl-cs.arpa Nick Maclaren University of Cambridge Computing Service