Re: generated manpages

[Eli Zaretskii]

On Sun, 11 Feb 2001, josX wrote:

> >If the information is already in the Info manual, and is just copied
> >into the man page, what's the value of that?  How is this different
> >from "info --usage"?
> 
> I could just an easily say: "If the information is already in the program
> through the '--help' and '--version' arguments, and is just copied
> into the man page, what's the value of that?  How is this different
> from "PROGRAM --help/version | less"?"

It isn't.  It's a stopgap, no more, no less.

> The info inside `info ls` would make a damn fine standard
> manpage, why did you guys ever start with that 'info' thing.
> `man` is extremely straighforward, why bother with all the menus...just
> confusing...

You don't (and shouldn't) go through the menus, except when you read 
about the package for the first time.  After that, use the manual as a 
reference, by using the `i' command which searches in the manual indices.
That's what I do, and I usually find what I'm looking for in a matter of 
seconds.

> I'm heavily thinking about translating `info ls` into nroff and distributing 
> it as the Dutch manpage for ls. 

It's free software.