Re: [tlug] Old dogs / new tricks

["Stephen J. Turnbull" <stephen@example.com>]

>>>>> "Michael" == Michael Smith <smith@example.com> writes:

    Michael> This makes me wonder how anybody ever finds out about the
    Michael> existence of rename(1) without getting informed about it
    Michael> on a mailing list or something.

As Alain says, you start with the assumption that it's already there
and then enlist the help of a thesaurus in listing search terms for
it, as well as using the less-stomach-turning of the 31337 spellings
in case of a collision with something with the right name but wrong
semantics.

    Michael> Is it because it's just too trivial for old-schoolers to
    Michael> just write a one-line bash script or function for doing
    Michael> it?  Or because it's just a Perl script?

I think it's mostly because writing good documentation is hard,
writing good documentation systems is harder, but users tend to just
complain (talk is cheap, and addresses the immediate need to blow off
steam) rather than pitch in (work ain't, and addresses no immediate
need of yours---if you know enough to write a doc patch, you found the
utility already), while programmers assume the need and the solution
are obvious, and pass on the documentation step.  Remember, they're
not getting paid for this....

Id-rather-be-coding-too-ly y'rs,

-- 
School of Systems and Information Engineering http://turnbull.sk.tsukuba.ac.jp
University of Tsukuba                    Tennodai 1-1-1 Tsukuba 305-8573 JAPAN
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              ask what your business can "do for" free software.