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From: steve@nuchat.UUCP (Steve Nuchia)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.c
Subject: Re: Inline assembler; a quiz  (long; sorry)
Message-ID: <273@nuchat.UUCP>
Date: Fri, 31-Jul-87 19:15:08 EDT
Article-I.D.: nuchat.273
Posted: Fri Jul 31 19:15:08 1987
Date-Received: Thu, 6-Aug-87 07:15:57 EDT
References: <608@zen.UUCP> <2299@hoptoad.uucp> <21211@sun.uucp> <8296@utzoo.UUCP> <23369@sun.uucp>
Organization: Public Access - Houston, Tx
Lines: 36
Summary: machine readable documentation not optional

In article <23369@sun.uucp>, guy%gorodish@Sun.COM (Guy Harris) writes:
> The claim that you don't have documentation if you don't have it in a
> machine-readable form is, when taken as a general claim, absurd.

First, I applaud your stated desire to get unix out to the non-tech types.

that said,  F L A M E   O N  !!!!

If you don't have documentation in machine readable form, and you
have more than one user, all but one of your users don't have documentation.

If you don't have documentation in machine readable form, and you
have a modem, anyone who uses the modem doesn't have documentation.

FLAME FLAME flame smolder flame spark smolder glow smoke poof.

I made this point to microport after the Nth time a user of my machine
complained about nothing being documented.  They said "but we give
you such nice printed manuals", which is true.  And which does my
users exactly no good, since they all call in on the modem.  So I
snagged the man pages from my opus, which are close but by no means
exactly the same as the microport.

A company I worked for used a plexus as the development station at
the time and having the source to all the documentation was nice.
It allowed us to look things up without leaving our desks.  It allowed
us to learn how to write man pages and more elaborate ?roff documents
by example.  It made us feel that the manufacturer cared, or at least
wasn't actively hostile.

You're often on the right side of an argument Guy, but you're dead
wrong on this one.

	Steve Nuchia
	(713) 334 6720  voice   (713) 334 1204  2400N81  login "trouble"
	{sun!housun,{soma,academ}!uhnix1}!nuchat!steve