renaming Help

Subject: renaming Help
From: Steve Owens <uso01 -at- EAGLE -dot- UNIDATA -dot- COM>
Date: Fri, 8 Apr 1994 16:29:27 +0700

> I might want to question the viability of the Unix "man" command. I was
> forced to use Unix systems on campus, and the times when I needed help
> and used that were generally unsuccessful: even when the command worked
> to give me some information (not a given), the information was frequently
> _un_helpful.

You were probably using "man" for inappropriate needs - which
is why I make the distinction between reference, tutorial, training,
and documentation. For providing syntax and option reference to a
competent UNIX user, man is usually quite sufficient (with some
lattitude for systems that don't have complete files).

> Steve, you say that you looked at Windows Help and found it lacking.
> You probably looked not at "Windows Help," but a specific Help file
> in Windows, a file that was probably poorly developed. With a well-written
> Help file, you would not encounter the problems you did.

Actually, I was looking at the section of MS-Windows Help that
was *about* MS-Windows.

Steven J. Owens
uso01 -at- unidata -dot- com


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