Mastodawn

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’d look there first

57.6%

Only after trying other options first

33.2%

Never

6.4%

Other / not sure

2.8%

Poll ended at Feb 21 at 4:10pm.

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Julia Evans Feb 20

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")

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George Macon

@b0rk
I said I look at man pages first, but I think you edited the question since I wrote that. For git, rsync, and curl, I typically look at the man page first for "small" things, but to some extent that's specific to those programs. Openssl (maybe new since I saw the poll?) I've learned has unhelpful man pages, so I usually search online first for it.