[ale] I am so tired of Linux Fanatics

[briarpatch.jim at gmail.com (Jim Philips)]

On Wed, Jul 7, 2010 at 10:18 PM, Damon L. Chesser <damon at damtek.com> wrote:

> On Wed, 2010-07-07 at 13:36 -0400, jrtroberts wrote:
> > This venting is from my experience on the freenode ##linux channel
>
> Which is why I once made #oklinux on freenode server.  I had one to many
> RTFM answers when I did not understand the TFM (in #debian and
> #freebsd).


The problem with RTFM is the assumption that the fine manual was well
written in the first place. I have been using Linux since 1995 and I have
 always felt that the man pages were written in exceptionally poor fashion.
The immediate underlying assumption is that you need to know about
*everything* and that most basic functions of a command are beside the
point. The man page for grep is an excellent example. They never go straight
to the point. The high use examples are always buried somewhere that you
would least be likely to look for them. The "F" in RTFM is not at all
deserved. How can I find a file containing "x" in my home directory? The
question will only be answered in the most convoluted way.
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