when do you usually use the man page for a complex command line tool to answer a question you have? (like git, openssl, rsync, curl, etc)
(edit: no need to say "i use --help then man")
i'm very curious about everyone who says "I'd look there first", if I want to figure out how to do something new I think I'll usually google how to do it rather than look at the man page, and then maybe later look at the man page to look up the details
(I've gotten enough of these answers:
- "I like that man pages don't require changing context"
- "with the man page I know I have the right version of the docs")
@b0rk It kind of depends on the question—usually my question is something like “what's the option to do such-and-such again?” which is easily answered by --help or the manpage.
When it's something more conceptual, then --help probably won't explain it and my first stop will be the manpage to see whether it does, because it's authoritative and I already have it. If that fails, then I'll try the web, and maybe a relevant book if I have one.
Julia Evans
Peter Hosey