
Ask HN: What is wrong with man pages? - kqr
Increasingly, I see projects that install man pages containing only a reference to some other form of documentation. It is frustrating when all I want to do is look up whether I want an upper-case or lower-case Y as a command-line flag.<p>Am I becoming a grumpy old man?<p>Which people do this?<p>Why do they do this?<p>Am I missing something amazing by tying myself to man pages as the first line of documentation?<p>Are man pages that hard to write?<p>Is something lost by complementing this other form of documentation with a proper man page?
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dozzie
> Which people do this?

The ones that don't use man pages themselves, obviously.

> Why do they do this?

They couldn't fathom that there are people who are working mainly in terminal
and don't want to leave it for reading the docs of every single tool they use.

> Am I missing something amazing by tying myself to man pages as the first
> line of documentation?

No, not really.

> Are man pages that hard to write?

Not harder than any other form of documentation, but an author needs to
actually consider writing one, while HTML is a default form.

What projects exactly you have in mind when ranting about crippled man pages?

