On Wed, Mar 21, 2001 at 07:40:54PM +1100 or thereabouts, Mary Gardiner wrote:
> On Wed, Mar 21, 2001 at 07:48:46AM +0100, Gina Lanik wrote:
> > um, excuse me, maybe I didn't get your point but what is wrong about
> > RTFM? I keep telling ppl on irc to do man this, man that, since the
> > manuals mostly give the most decent/in-depth info... and can be more
> > accurate than my description....
> > </close-penny-jar>
>
> Well, Ms Newbie has just installed Linux for the first time. Presuming
> the install went well, everything is fine for a few days. Ms Newbie
> wants to find out something.
>
> On IRC:
> MsNewbie21> How do I install/fix/get blah?
> Random> RTFM, clueless newbie!
>
> Depending on how new you are, you don't know where the manuals are. Man
> is useless if you don't know the command. There are some people
> installing Linux these days who have *never* used a command prompt.
Heh. Way back ten years ago (eeep, ten years of this stuff?), two tales
I recall...
First one, on a machine's local chat system, in the days when man was
all you got:
<user1> How do I...?
<user2> rtfm
<user1> I don't have a man rtfm entry.
Second one:
The sysadmin who wrote and installed a local 'rtfm' page which explained
"what this stands for, what the person who told you 'man rtfm' meant,
and how to use man, since man man is horrible"
As I say, this is ten years ago, when people were assumed to know a
little more than can be assumed now. I mean, if they knew who to ask
to get a unix account, that was indication of a lot of knowledge --
the net wasn't exactly well-known at the time. And yes, people were
equally rude then; yes, it was considered rude; and yes, lots of people
had real trouble with man's less than obvious conventions.
I was always disappointed no-one else borrowed the second idea, but
there we are :)
Telsa
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