On 2003-03-25 07:10, Steve Kargl <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>On Tue, Mar 25, 2003 at 10:11:00AM +0100, Christian Brueffer wrote:
>>On Mon, Mar 24, 2003 at 09:43:17PM +0200, Giorgos Keramidas wrote:
>>> On 2003-03-24 19:14, Christian Brueffer <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>>> > I'll write a small manpage this evening which says that MAKEDEV is
>>> > gone now with a short summary of what devfs does. Does that resolve
>>> > your worries?
>>>
>>> If you write a detailed description of devfs please add it to devfs(5)
>>> and just replace the existing manpage of MAKEDEV with something like:
>>>
>>> The MAKEDEV script was deprecated by devfs(5) and geom(4) and
>>> removed from FreeBSD after GEOM became mandatory. Please see
>>> the devfs(5), devfs(8), geom(4) and mount_devfs(8) manpages for
>>> more details.
>>>
>>> This should be enough IMHO to point the reader to the right place.
>>
>> That was my original intent. I'm still uncertain if it would be better
>> to write a small manpage or just create a MLINK to one of the devfs
>> pages...
>
> Are you going to write a man page everytime a feature
> is deprecated? MAKEDEV is dead and gone. At most
> create the MLINK.
Only for very important features that are a hardcoded part of most
Unix users' brain patterns by now. MAKEDEV is a feature that has been
with us for a long time. Actually, it's been in UNIX even before I
was born! :-)
Besides, I don't like (ab)using MLINKS for implicit redirects, because
it feels like "cheating" or "tricking" the user to read something that
he should instantly recognize and think "ah, yes, here it is"... this
is not always the case though.
Imagine the confusion if a Slackware Linux user who has learned that
MAKEDEV is the place to look at, who goes into /dev and can't find it.
He then goes on to type:
% apropos MAKEDEV
MAKEDEV: nothing appropriate.
That must look annoying. Or even worse (using MLINKS), imagine the
confusion when one types:
% man MAKEDEV
only to find that devfs(5) pops up. I can almost read already the
posts to bugs@ or the PRs in the gnats database about "manpage error,
MAKEDEV loads devfs" :-)
- Giorgos
To Unsubscribe: send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
with "unsubscribe freebsd-current" in the body of the message
