I’ve got to confess, I have for years been guilty if not reading the documentation. I simply go with the flow and hope it works…
But not anymore! And why the change you may ask? We’ll, I’m reading the f…ing documentation on Rocky linux and I’m just blown away from the amount of great information!
If you’ve been guilty of not reading the documentation, let me me know what changed it for you
If you’re not reading the documentation, this is your time to confess!
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Lol reading the source has trained me to try reading the documentation.
If it’s good, it’ll save hours or crawling through code.
While investing money to create good documentation is the preferred way, I cannot trust it to be accurate in this day and age of cutting corners. It takes a bit longer but I’ll always look at the code itself to get me closest to the truth of what is going on under the hood.
If documentation is written in a readable and confluent way, RTFM isn’t such a big deal. The issue comes with overly draconian and non-confluent documentation.
I thought you wrote confluence and wanted to grab my pitchfork.
rivers
There is a way with chmod in bash to change files and folders with files getting no execute bit and folder do (rwX instead of rwx). It’s in the man pages but good luck finding it via Google. Stackoverflow just suggests using find over and over again.
That did it for me.
Looking at you, Nix documentation
Day 564: I have become lost in the forums amidst flake debate threads. Do not search for me, it is already too late.
You’re absolutely right
Confluent?
Flowing/coming together.
I think what they are referring to are docs where pieces are explained individually, but not in a consistent or cohesive way, obfuscating use.
In my experience, all the Linux documentation I have read has been written for peers of Linux developers, who are familiar with technical terminology and several concepts and steps are left out and implied rather than explained.
It’s a way for developers to ensure that Linux never receives adoption past other developers. Literary equivalent of pulling the ladder up.
I mean, it’s technical documentation. There’s a limit to how exciting it can be. lol.
who are familiar with technical terminology and several concepts and steps are left out and implied rather than explained.
Said it before and I’ll say it again: had to manually install some software to make Steam tinker launch work, and the instructions for installing it were to download and prepare the GitHub folder, then “do the usual and move the completed file to …”
Ive used git in the past and it still took me multiple minutes to figure out they meant the “make && build” command. Why was that so hard to fucking write??
Highly specialized people live in bubbles and assume that everyone else lives in their same bubble and so if someone else doesn’t understand, they aren’t worth communicating with.
XKCD 2501, basically.
Thank you for this. It’s beautiful.
I had a boring manufacturing job with long gaps between batches of work, so I read every help file in Windows NT4.1. While reading them, I found a way around our IT limitations on which apps we could run, and learned how to write scripts. So I wrote a password protected launcher tool using a macro feature in a terminal emulator I had access to on my workstation, and then started reading the man pages in Unix sys-V.
Depends on what I am doing. Walky Talky? Toaster? Dish washer? … Who needs a manual for that?
FID detector? I need to know several things before turning it on. New Mainboard? Why is the WoL setting behind wake on PCIe?
Well, I’ve had a job where most coms were through a walky talky and somehow people didn’t understand they had to think - push - talk 😅
Funny how that’s the case for most people 🤣
What the … LOL
Gotta start somewhere 😅
It’s weird that Linux certification requires rote-memorization of commands. The only people who make any effort to memorize commands are newbies and people studding for exams. You will always have access to bash history, man, and --help, even from an offline machine.
Every command I’ve memorized is simply the natural process of repetition. Is that your experience?
Yes. But also, despite having done it literally thousands of times, I still can’t tell you which way round to put the target and the link name for a softlink on the first go.
My first guess is always
ln -s $NAME $TARGETNo amount of repetition will fix this.
My trick to remember:
You can link to a target without giving a name to the link. ln will use the basename of the target file then. You can’t create a link without a target, so target has to go first since it’s not optional. Did it for me
I used to have that problem with ln until I realized it’s essentially the same ordering as cp: source, then destination. The source being the existing file that you’re linking to, and the destination being the link that you’re creating
Are you trying to say I’m not a newbie with over 20 years of experience?
People are worried about losing skills to AI while all the skills have already been lost to Google and stack exchange 😅
i stopped reading most docs after like 95 unless they are rfc or reference and i had a memory that was stellar
now, i read all of them over and over and over because i got a tbi from electroshock “therapy” and i am working with shitty autobiographical memories and cant get to the details. so i read, keep reading, and make sure all the mans are at hand along with my references. now i get frustrated and wanna die but i still get it done but im always like yeah uh no
I prefer to raw dog it first, break it, then tuck me dick and read the paper like the real alpha male
I’m kind of that way. I will browse documentation, get a good idea as to what has to happen, then I raw dog it. Then, after many failed attempts, I go read the documentation. I agree with [email protected] tho, a ton of documentation either assumes you are a certified, dyed in the wool, sysadmin veteran with a wall of certs, or it’s just too sparse for me to put together.
I have a theory: information is best remembered if it is acquired solving a problem.
Play with the new tech, hit a roadblock, read and learn. That way you are motivated, know why you are reading the stuff and also only learn the stuff that isn’t intuitive.
Depending on experience many things are just like something you already know and easy to learn/remember, others are not. Don’t waste your time learning the first.
On the other hand, put me into a room with a teacher, who tries to teache me specifics about a tech I don’t care about and I will promise you, I will learn nothing. Even worse, I will start to hate that tech.
On the other hand, put me into a room with a teacher, who tries to teache me specifics about a tech I don’t care about and I will promise you, I will learn nothing. Even worse, I will start to hate that tech.
Interesting. I read a lot. Probably tb’s of data per day. I don’t watch tv not even news or weather. It’s not a religious thing and it doesn’t make me holier than thou. I just find that reading is best for me. However, if you hand me a traditional book, I will never crack the binding. Put that same book in a digital format that I can read from my devices, and I’ll read it cover to cover and probably storage the document to read later.
We’re all kind of quirky and we all have our own optimum way to learn. Mine is usually just screwing shit up until I get it.
Same for me, no TV for the last 15 years. All I consume is online and about topics I like.
TBs of data per day? You know how much text fits into 1tb? o.O
Anyway, we seem to enjoy a pretty similar type of entertainment. For me, it’s all about liking what I do. I can’t stand doing things I dislike at all.
Lemme ask you about ADHD?! I’m pretty sure I have it but don’t care. I am who I am. How about you?
well I’d read the documentation if websearch wasn’t so shoddy that I could find it in the first place /s
Man pages tend to assume a lot and overload the user with information.
Forums are full of “duh, haven’t you read the man pages, idiot?” kinds of people.
Web searches are full of AI/garbage (same thing) articles that focus on distros/programs that are either horrendously inaccurate, out of date, or simply don’t exist anymore.
Therefore, I utilize the
tldrman pages, and use extremely specific terms for web searches.Oh thank hell it’s not just me. Every so often I retry the man command only to get frustrated having to flip through six walls of text via keyboard for something a 20 second Internet search would have easily refreshed my memory on.
FYI
Use / to search the man page, it’s basically less. Been doing that for years, as some man pages are the length of the great wall of China.
Oh it is certainly not just you, I am sometimes confused reading them even for commands I have used for years and I know what flag I am looking for but don’t remember the exact syntax or something hah! I am glad they are there but they are definitely not a complete guide to any command, especially built-ins.
Interestingly, this is something AI has been very useful for to me, less searching because I can describe the outcome I want and it figures out what I am talking about generally.
Bingo.
And even then it’s difficult to find shit, like for instance, finding the working directory for
crontabwhen run as root. This answer on Stack Overflow is the embodiment of my second example in the other comment. The answer goes into great detail, references the man pages, and still doesn’t answer the question in any reasonable capacity for a “standard user” like myself.
Man can be searched as well, if you use less or grep a lot the same keys work.
Use / to search
Yes, I am painfully aware. Unfortunately, this doesn’t actually help.
I find that the docs usually consist of a quick start guide covering some ultra tight scenario that doesn’t apply to most people, and reference material that’s just some total brain dump of every possible command without any kind of context.
“F* you, I won’t read what you tell me!”
- Rage Against The Manual
so rally round your PC… with a pocket KVM
RTFM. …
… The last thing you try.I have found the docs the best place to start with anything, but have found that some don’t know how to write good documentation.
Also man pages and the tools own help -? Or -h
If you run something that has pants docs, you could always see if there is a way to help update it
