Julia EvansFeb 20

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 .
Show threadJulia EvansFeb 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")

Show threadJulia EvansFeb 20
i think part of the reason I'm feeling interested in man pages right now even though I rarely use them is that search has gotten so much worse, it's frustrating, and it makes it feel more appealing to have trustworthy sources with clear explanations
Show threadJulia Evans

also it just occurred to me that the one time I wrote a command line tool (https://rbspy.github.io/) I didn't write a man page for it, I made a documentation website instead. I don't remember even considering writing a man page, probably because I rarely use man pages

(not looking to argue about whether command line tools "should" have man pages or not, just reflecting about how maybe I personally would prefer a good docs website over a man page. Also please no "webpages require internet")

Introduction - rbspy: A Sampling CPU Profiler for Ruby

Feb 20 at 3:10pmWeb
Show threadaburka 🫣Feb 20
@b0rk there's also the aspect that man pages are stored on my system when the tool is installed, whereas websites inevitably disappear over time and can be temporarily inaccessible for any number of reasons
Show threadaburka 🫣Feb 20
@b0rk do we need a --help that starts a local web server hosting a doc page which is way easier to read and navigate than a man page? 🤔
Show threadJulia EvansFeb 20
@aburka that's what fish does! Well it just opens the HTML file in the browser, no need to start a local web server for those docs
Show threadEnno RehlingFeb 20
@b0rk @aburka this should honestly be the default for non-man docs: open the local HTML documentation from /usr/share if it's been installed there, or on the web if it hasn't. I still prefer to have man pages, but agree they are a hassle to create.
Show threadViraptorFeb 24
@aburka
Ideally I'd like something progressive, like an interactive --help that shows and allows search over the normal --help content, but starts pulling in man sections or full documentation when the previous levels don't contain matches. Transparently tiered docs 😀
@b0rk
Show threadanarcatFeb 20
@b0rk i've begun to feel more strongly that i need manual pages for everything, and good ones at that. the problem is manpages are stupidly hard to write, and duplicate a lot of stuff from --help. i always solve this by converting from markdown, and generally failing at DRY
Show threadJonathan HartleyFeb 20
@b0rk I suppose that adding a man page requires extra hurdles of not just creating the man page itself, but packaging your tool such that the man page gets installed along with it. Now you have to make a .deb and and .apt and whatever else, instead of just saying "download this script or executable and run it."
Show threadJulia EvansFeb 20
@tartley yea I'm not sure if anyone's ever packaged rbspy for Debian because (at least at the time) packaging Rust projects for Debian was hard or maybe impossible
Show threadTony FinchFeb 20

@tartley @b0rk an idea i copied from git is to make -h print the short summary and --help brings up the man page

i have embedded the man page in the script or binary so it doesn’t have to be installed separately (tho it only works with the man command if the man page is installed)

Show threaddgelessusFeb 20

@fanf @tartley @b0rk TIL that Git's -h and --help do different things. What an unfortunate UI though :( It goes completely against the principle of long options and the established behavior of -h/--help in every other CLI tool, and even the git(1) man page claims that -h and --help are identical??

Very useful to know though. Previously, I used tricks like "git remote blarg" to get the short help, and was a little confused/surprised that there was no better way to see the short help text.

Show threaddgelessusFeb 20

@fanf @tartley @b0rk Oh, it's actually even worse! `git remote -h` shows the short help, but `git -h remote` outputs the man page.

`git remote --help`, `git --help remote`, and `git help remote` also all show the man page. So the specific spelling `git <command> -h` seems to be a special case. This is extremely unhelpful behavior for an option that's meant to be used when you don't know how to use a program... :(

Show threadEmily_SFeb 20

@b0rk I've written a few command line tools over the years that launch a web broswer to display stuff.

I'll keep the idea of having a docs subcommand spawn a local web server and broswer to view guides, could be useful.

Show threadgibwarFeb 20

@b0rk I've written man pages before when building internal tools. It was fun learning the ROFF language or whatever. Part of my reluctance to do it with general tools is the requirement to install them as satellite files which is a bit of a pain when it comes to single binary downloads.

I know there's alternate locations you can put them, like /usr/local/man and even $HOME/.local/share/man the directory structure after that is also a bit of a pain. 😅 And then there's the need to remember to clean them up after the fact if you no longer use the tool.

It'd be neat if some of these apps had the ability to drop the files and a cleanup step to remove them so they could still be single binary. Another thought would be extending man to see if the the requested page is available normally, and if not, see if there's a binary in the path that matches that name? Maybe the man page could be embedded in another section so it didn't have to be executed to generate help? 🤔

Show threadednl 🇪🇺Feb 20
@b0rk I very much agree with your consideration: search is worse & frustrating, look for trustworthy sources. For older people (like me..) it's probably easier or more natural to switch back to reading the manual instead of searching as the first option.
I understand how the doc website was more logical to you. But I think a second reason to prefer a man page or readme or whatever, is that websites are so ethereal. They require maintenance that's often not content related, so they get abandoned.
Show threadJulia EvansFeb 20

@ednl yeah, I think the answer to "will there always be a way to get free and reliable static site for open source projects?" is not obvious

When I made that site it felt like github pages would be there forever, and maybe it still will, but I feel less certain of what the future of that looks like than I did.

Show threadTristan Colgate-McFarlaneFeb 20
@b0rk one advantage with a man page packaged with the tool is the versioning. The man page should hopefully be the correct version for hte installed tool, avoiding some potential confusion.
I do tend to use man pages for old C libraries if I need docs too. Interestingly I don't do that for Go packages (I either use the local src doc strings that my editor jumps to, or I'll use the pkg.go.dev site).
(obviously there are no man pages for go pkgs, but I rarely use go doc directly)
Show threadJan SchaumannFeb 20
@b0rk FWIW, I first write the man page, then the code. Helps me clarify what the user wants, how I will interact with the tool. I then generate the README from the man page.
Show thread#Digital ⚓️ #Vagabond 🦈Feb 20
@jschauma @b0rk famously README driven development! Although I guess, manpage driven development! :D
Show threadFredFeb 20
@b0rk getting good documentation is the important bit. One good thing about mandoc is you can render your man page as html and serve it from you website.
Show threadMartinFeb 20
@b0rk I almost always google my way to a website manual when I need to know how a tool works. Or I settle for `command --help`. Maybe I should add man into the rotation
Show threadHenrik PauliFeb 20
@b0rk The point of having a man page (or as you edited the original post: a --help) is that it's self-contained and, hopefully, true to the actual thing you're trying to run. The website requires an internet connection and it might be about a newer version than you have (did your distro or you forget to upgrade the tool?) or older (did the author forget to update the documentation?) and while a site is often a better UX (graphical browsers and whatnot), those are issues to be considered.
Show threadcateFeb 20
@b0rk note: Because Debian requires man pages, I notice that lot of the are written by debian developers, so I assume also a lot of developers don’t use man pages. (note also that writing man pages was very difficult, not just content, but technically: complex non standardized language, various tools, and I still not sure there is a guide on conventions)
Show threadChris SiebenmannFeb 20
@b0rk For me I think it's a composite of four things:
* old pre-good-search habits of reading manpages first, which also gives me lots of practice at navigating them.
* I often only want some specific piece of information (eg 'what switch is used for ...') that I can find with a search of the manpage in less
* Internet search has gotten untrustworthy and bad.
* Sometimes I want to see the authoritative 'what the program says' instead of people describing it.
Show threadNorman WilsonFeb 20

@cks @b0rk All the above, plus that my habits were formed back in the ancient days (when PDP-11s and VAXes roamed the earth) when manual entries were mostly clear and concise and programs mosly simple and straightforward and could be described clearly and concisely.

Yes, I'm a grumpy old fart.

Show threadKerrick Long (code)Feb 20
@b0rk I've written --help output, but I've never known how to write a man page.
Show threadTony MottazFeb 21
@b0rk something I like about the fish shell is that the `help` command opens the bundled documentation site in your browser. It’s all local and pinned to the actual version you’re running. I would 100% take something like that for any CLI tool
Show threadPeter KreftingFeb 21

@b0rk Back when I was a Debian developer, I wrote man pages for programs I packaged, since everything should have one (it's part of rhe packaging guidelines).

Some of the Debian man pages have made their way back upstream (not any of mine, that I am aware of).

I started using computers when they were not always online, so I grew up with local documentation as the primary source.

Show threadTheConstructor (he/him)Feb 21
@b0rk I regularly look at e.g. https://linux.die.net/man/ https://www.man7.org/linux/man-pages/ or similar sites for man pages when not on linux. The man-format seems to render well as html. I did try info some times, but preferred the single-document approach of man as I could more easily search in it. I do prefer to have an option to have the documentation in the shell, as I can use e.g. screen to copy things into the command I am preparing. Scenario here would be ssh into a *nix environment from Android or Windows, where you rarely have that documentation locally. Of course you may offer HTML-pages additionaly
Linux man pages