Re: Proposal to remove catman(8)

[Kamil Rytarowski <kamil%netbsd.org@localhost>]

On 10.11.2020 10:30, Robert Elz wrote:
>     Date:        Tue, 10 Nov 2020 00:05:32 +0100
>     From:        Kamil Rytarowski <kamil%netbsd.org@localhost>
>     Message-ID:  <c1ef7af4-c413-667a-464c-b40393cac2d9%netbsd.org@localhost>
> 
>   | Do you use it? Do you know anybody who uses it on NetBSD-current?
> 
> I might start.   Particularly for the pages that mandoc can't format properly.
> 

The mandoc upstream worked hard already a few years back to be a
compatible drop-in replacement tool for formatting virtually any manual
pages.

If you still can find any man-page that is unsupported by mandoc, please
let me know and I will report it.

>   | I don't trust that these people are tracking or using -current that used
>   | to have broken MKCATPAGES.
> 
> That's irrelevant, no-one is complaining about that being removed.  Don't
> you understand the difference?
> 

Removal of the whole cat-pages support was implied and intended in my
initial proposal. I was also privately asked by wiz@ to remember to drop
cat dirs from etc/mtree.

>   | html pages are not integrated in man.conf(5) or man(1). cat pages are
>   | integrated and preferred over man pages.
> 
> What the default man.conf should contain is another issue which can
> be discussed.   Aside from that it would be dumb to have it refer to
> catN/* pages if the catman command were to no longer exist, that's
> a completely separate question from removing catman(8).
> 

This was intended to be removed too. Also what's the point of catman(8)
if cat dirs were intended to be gone?

> And in any case, if you don't generate the cat pages, then "preferred
> over man pages" is harmless, is it not?   Or is your "man" command somehow
> not working when the cat pages don't exist?
> 

The cat pages are passed through cat(1) and thus cannot be (easily)
reformatted dynamically.

> 
>   | For example patch(1) had removed SCCS support silently,
> 
> That probably shouldn't have happened.   But patch is code imported
> from upstream, right?   That has other considerations.
> 

patch(1) is a local program, not polled from any upstream. NetBSD is
also not the only BSD to drop SCCS support.

>   | I sense a general difference in the view point. We are apparently
>   | trading better performance on a historical computer in possibly
>   | non-existent setup anymore in two or more decades + frustrating users vs
>   | good user experience on anything modern, customizable and compatible
>   | with other OSs.
> 
> I fail to see any frustration (other than this useless debate), or any
> way that could even happen in a default setup.
> 

I don't want to drag regular users to mailing lists.

I was asked by mrg@ to revert the MKCATPAGES removal and add a new
proposal that is more precise.