Talk:1343: Manuals

Your line counts may vary for the man pages, depending on what distribution you are running and what version of man you're using (and god forbid, what version of wc). ‎108.162.221.51 (talk) (please sign your comments with ~~~~)

Mine comes in at 1806 lines. So even more unwieldy. (Ubuntu 13.10) 108.162.216.74 14:36, 17 March 2014 (UTC)

1,743 here... but that's still only medium length; g++ weighs in at 14,148 (Fedora 20). 173.245.52.29 19:09, 17 March 2014 (UTC)

g++ might be 14,148, but it is also a compiler. In fact it's a collection of compilers, optimizers, linkers, preprocessors, optimizers, lexers, parsers, partridges, and pear trees. sudoers is a config file. 108.162.221.5 00:30, 19 March 2014 (UTC)

I seem to remember some info page starting with “how to read this manual”… can’t find it though. --108.162.254.162 10:00, 17 March 2014 (UTC)

I believe the implication is that the "how to read this manual" section is a manual for the manual. This could be characterized as an instance of recursion. 173.245.54.52 16:07, 17 March 2014 (UTC)

Cool. I had been wondering what that grammar-description syntax was called and how it worked. Now I know where to read about it! I do wonder about how true the cartoon is, though. Notepad does not require a manual or tutorial, but vi and Emacs do. Jim E (talk) 16:10, 17 March 2014 (UTC)

Did you seriously just compare a Windows and a Unix tool? In my opinion though, notepad/nano are more useful. 108.162.221.43 17:49, 17 March 2014 (UTC)

Trolling? Spongebog (talk) 19:24, 17 March 2014 (UTC)

If not trolling should at least read man nano before saying "notepad/nano". 108.162.221.5 19:21, 18 March 2014 (UTC)

Is this spelling correct: "that tool tends", but "these tools tend"? I'm not native English so maybe someone can help. --Dgbrt (talk) 20:47, 17 March 2014 (UTC)

Yes, those are both correct English. "That tool" is singular while "these tools" is plural, thus the verbs are (singular) "tends" and (plural) "tend". There is a mistake in the fourth bullet where the person who wrote the explanation said "most worse" (should have said "worst": "But the worst tools..."). 108.162.221.84 (talk) (please sign your comments with ~~~~)

Many thanks for your reply. Your last statement is covered now. Many thanks for your help! But please don't forget to sign your post. Maybe you should create an account here, it's much easier to talk. --Dgbrt (talk) 22:59, 17 March 2014 (UTC)

Could this comic itself be considered a manual for how to determine whether a tool causes or creates problems? 173.245.54.89 21:02, 17 March 2014 (UTC)

I think this comic is a tool, rather than a manual, a tool to determine whether a tool fixes or creates problems. This tool needs/has a manual (this wiki page). At least this wiki page doesn't include a section called "How to read this xkcd explanation". 108.162.221.5 19:26, 18 March 2014 (UTC)

Would not the "Help" link on the left be classed as a manual for this page? DD (talk) 09:27, 19 March 2014 (UTC)

Yeah, but do you need the help for reading this wiki? --108.162.254.196 12:09, 19 March 2014 (UTC)