(Linux historically has terrible man pages compared to say the old SunOS man pages of yore, but the ssh man page is complete.)
(When I was first introduced to Unix, it was on SunOS. One day, I typed "man intro" [1]and about 8 hours of man page reading later, decided to call it a day.)
(Here's another thing you can do. Look at the list of commands in your PATH. I'll bet you're not familiar with all of them. Some will have curious names. Why not see what they do?)
I don't like this line of reasoning, because people did read the manual. These escape characters are on the 7th page (on my terminal) and are not a feature needed to used to get the service. Most people just need to connect, maybe get an X server. That's it.
The reason I don't like the line of reasoning is because it is similar to "You should read and memorize the entirety of Python documentation before you begin programming." This is both absurd and elitist. The reason posts like this are helpful is because human memory and attention don't work like that. It is more natural to learn things as they are required (man pages are not ordered in terms of most commonly used commands, nor should it be. Man pages are a reference page designed for a time before stackexchange existed, and they are great) because you shouldn't just memorize things you aren't going to use, and if you don't use them you will forget.
TLDR: No one likes the wizard that scoffs "RTFM," it isn't helpful.
Sounds suspiciously like "if only people would read Terms of Service". A single document, given lots of leisure time, is fine. The aggregate of all man pages (or in my example ToS docs) is ridiculous.
I would argue that man pages are good if you know what you're looking for. The hardest part about modern tech stacks is knowing which layer (therefore which M) to RTFM.
I mean, man pages are searchable, immediately accessible, usually callable by the same name as the binary, somewhat standard in their formatting, and frequently exhaustive in at least the interface of the program. It's about 10x easier to `man someprogram` than it is to open a browser and google for some random answer in a lot of cases. What flag is it again? How do I format that string again?
Man pages are part of what I love about the unixy CLI experience. That is, in my opinion, a far cry from a hostile document like a ToS that is asking you to consent to things after going out of their way to be impenetrable and opaque.
The man pages are just trying to help you! Love them.
When I was at UCB in the 80's I regularly read the man pages. Learned so much. So, I would definitely disagree. I think it's an excellent way to learn about *nix and what it offers.
Comments
So much to learn, if only people would read man pages.
https://linux.die.net/man/1/ssh
See the "Escape Characters" section.
(Linux historically has terrible man pages compared to say the old SunOS man pages of yore, but the ssh man page is complete.)
(When I was first introduced to Unix, it was on SunOS. One day, I typed "man intro" [1]and about 8 hours of man page reading later, decided to call it a day.)
1. https://docs.oracle.com/cd/E19683-01/816-0210/6m6nb7m45/inde...
(Here's another thing you can do. Look at the list of commands in your PATH. I'll bet you're not familiar with all of them. Some will have curious names. Why not see what they do?)
Section 7 of the manual pages contains some gems indeed. I was unaware of intro(7)!
In addition to exploring your PATH, here is a nice proxy for a list of useful concepts:
I don't like this line of reasoning, because people did read the manual. These escape characters are on the 7th page (on my terminal) and are not a feature needed to used to get the service. Most people just need to connect, maybe get an X server. That's it.
The reason I don't like the line of reasoning is because it is similar to "You should read and memorize the entirety of Python documentation before you begin programming." This is both absurd and elitist. The reason posts like this are helpful is because human memory and attention don't work like that. It is more natural to learn things as they are required (man pages are not ordered in terms of most commonly used commands, nor should it be. Man pages are a reference page designed for a time before stackexchange existed, and they are great) because you shouldn't just memorize things you aren't going to use, and if you don't use them you will forget.
TLDR: No one likes the wizard that scoffs "RTFM," it isn't helpful.
Sounds suspiciously like "if only people would read Terms of Service". A single document, given lots of leisure time, is fine. The aggregate of all man pages (or in my example ToS docs) is ridiculous.
I would argue that man pages are good if you know what you're looking for. The hardest part about modern tech stacks is knowing which layer (therefore which M) to RTFM.
I mean, man pages are searchable, immediately accessible, usually callable by the same name as the binary, somewhat standard in their formatting, and frequently exhaustive in at least the interface of the program. It's about 10x easier to `man someprogram` than it is to open a browser and google for some random answer in a lot of cases. What flag is it again? How do I format that string again?
Man pages are part of what I love about the unixy CLI experience. That is, in my opinion, a far cry from a hostile document like a ToS that is asking you to consent to things after going out of their way to be impenetrable and opaque.
The man pages are just trying to help you! Love them.
What about googling "man somecommand" in the browser?
No (direct) google needed:
https://linux.die.net/man/
In the creators' defense, man has several methods to figure out what you're looking for. And this isn't modern, it came out around 1971 :)
The first is "apropos" or "man -k". You ask for a keyword and maybe a section and it lists relevant pages.
The second is intro pages. "man 1 intro" tells you about user commands. "man 2 intro" about system calls, and so on.
Third is the "SEE ALSO" lists. Once you find something relevant you start chasing rabbit holes.
And finally "man man" of course.
When I was at UCB in the 80's I regularly read the man pages. Learned so much. So, I would definitely disagree. I think it's an excellent way to learn about *nix and what it offers.