Re: misc/39121

["Valeriy E. Ushakov" <uwe%netbsd.org@localhost>]

The following reply was made to PR misc/39121; it has been noted by GNATS.

From: "Valeriy E. Ushakov" <uwe%netbsd.org@localhost>
To: gnats-bugs%NetBSD.org@localhost
Cc: 
Subject: Re: misc/39121
Date: Sat, 19 Jul 2008 20:36:00 +0400

 On Fri, Jul 18, 2008 at 21:32:32 -0700, Mike Cheponis wrote:
 
 > On Sat, 19 Jul 2008, Valeriy E. Ushakov wrote:
 > 
 > > The table would still occupy too much vertical space, which is a real
 > > showstopper IMO.
 > 
 > man automatically uses the "more" pager, so I don't see how this is
 > much of an issue.
 
 That's the point, I don't want to use pager every time I want to get
 from A to Z.  Again, with the current layout I can "focus" the table I
 want on the screen (using pager once) and don't have to touch that
 window afterwards.
 
 
 > Lastly, this format has a very long heritage in the Unix world. 
 
 Our current layout is direct descendant of Unix V7 ascii(7).  You can
 easily verify that by checking http://cm.bell-labs.com/7thEdMan/ - if
 that's not heritage, I don't know what is :)
 
 
 > For those of you old enough to remember, this is the same format as
 > printed on the DEC pdp-11 Programming Card (mine is dated October
 > 1974).
 
 Oh, come on, DEC used so many different formats in different manuals.
 Shall we use 1/11, 7/15, etc notation just because it's in e.g. VT200
 manual?  Why is it not in the table you propose?
 
 The table on the PDP-11 card is most suited for the format of the
 card.  My point is that our current table(s) most suited for the
 format of the screen.
 
 
 This discussion is not going anywhere, I'm going to close this bug as
 invalid.  If someone doesn't like a manual page that comes with the
 system there's always an option to installing the one you like in
 /usr/local and adjusting your man path.  There's enough rope.
 
 -uwe