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Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!cbosgd!ihnp4!oddjob!sra
From: sra@oddjob.UUCP (Scott R. Anderson)
Newsgroups: net.followup,net.news.group
Subject: Re: net.doc
Message-ID: <1011@oddjob.UUCP>
Date: Wed, 23-Oct-85 11:34:24 EDT
Article-I.D.: oddjob.1011
Posted: Wed Oct 23 11:34:24 1985
Date-Received: Thu, 24-Oct-85 01:07:01 EDT
References: <96@tekadg.UUCP> <2850@pesnta.UUCP> <354@ihdev.UUCP>
Reply-To: sra@oddjob.UUCP (Scott R. Anderson)
Organization: University of Chicago, Department of Physics
Lines: 24
Xref: watmath net.followup:5366 net.news.group:3934

In article <327@graffiti.UUCP> peter@graffiti.UUCP (Peter da Silva) writes:
>
>The Berkeley manual has a keyword-in-context index that is *extremely* useful.
>The new AT&T manuals not only don't have that but they aren't even organised
>into the right sections any more... I remember a Berkeley program called
>"apropos" that looked up stuff in the KWIK index. Does it still exist?

It still exists in the standard Berkeley distribution; it has been removed
from the Sun release, as it is a synonym for "man -k".  The "whatis" command
uses the same data base, but only keys on the command name; it is essentially
a quick "man".

I agree with Peter that "man -k" is extremely useful; much more useful than
a VMS-style "help" command, which depends on a command name's ability to
convey the gist of the command's function (which, of course, would not work
with UNIX command names, and often does not with VMS command names). It also
requires a user to sift through a large number of names (~100) to find what
they want.  What would be more useful, I think, is something like the "how"
command posted by Bob Ware about a year ago, where commands are functionally
and hierarchically organized and selected.  It can be used when you know
what you want to do, but not "how" to do it.

					Scott Anderson
					ihnp4!oddjob!kaos!sra