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From: farren@gethen.UUCP
Newsgroups: comp.sys.ibm.pc,comp.sys.misc,comp.lang.c,comp.lang.pascal
Subject: Re: Aggravating manuals
Message-ID: <187@gethen.UUCP>
Date: Tue, 29-Sep-87 15:26:56 EDT
Article-I.D.: gethen.187
Posted: Tue Sep 29 15:26:56 1987
Date-Received: Fri, 2-Oct-87 03:24:44 EDT
References: <1651@killer.UUCP> <1796@tekgen.TEK.COM>
Reply-To: farren@gethen.UUCP (Michael J. Farren)
Organization: Sci-Fido - Unix in Oakland
Lines: 28
Keywords: demand improvements!
Xref: utgpu comp.sys.ibm.pc:7351 comp.sys.misc:804 comp.lang.c:4423 comp.lang.pascal:307

In article <1796@tekgen.TEK.COM> sytek@tekgen.UUCP (Mike Ewan) writes:
>
>The way I figure it, the softbound manuals are an insidious copy protection
>scheme.  As hard to hold open as they are, they are even harder to run 
>through a copy machine.  And who wants a compiler without documentation.

While copy protection may well be one of the results of a perfect bound,
soft cover manual, I'm pretty sure that the real reason they are used is
cost.  Binding a softcover book is a little less expensive than a 3-ring
binder alone, without even considering the extra labor costs involved in
putting the loose-leaf type manual together, an operation which pretty
much must be done manually.

>Anyway, I agree that it is a terrible pain to try and use one of those manuals
>while developing code.  I've been tempted to dismember either the MASM or
>Turboc manuals many times.

So go ahead!  I've done this several times, most often with bigger (8-1/2 -
11) manuals, which have a tendency to fall apart by themselves anyway.
Much easier to use, and much, much easier to replace pages that coffee
has spilled all over.


-- 
----------------
Mike Farren             "... if the church put in half the time on covetousness
unisoft!gethen!farren   that it does on lust, this would be a better world ..."
gethen!farren@lll-winken.arpa             Garrison Keillor, "Lake Wobegon Days"