Re: Comparing the contents of two discs?

Elliott Roper <nospam@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:

[snip]

A proper operating system would have complete and readable doco.

That makes CP/M more of a proper OS than most modern OSes, if you ask
me.

when rsync starts off with "it does what rcp does only better" and
trails off without further overview, I do get to feel a little lost, a
little too early.

Unix documentation is meant to exclude those who are not already Unix
experts. That attitude seems to have infected Mac-land. So we have a
situation where documentation is unneccessary since the user can
allegedly intuit usage from the UI, and any documentation that is
supplied is meant to be inaccessible to anyone who actually needs to
read it.

I've noticed recently that most software documentation no longer
explains properly what the software is meant to do. You get
instructions on how to operate each control - which is pointless, since
that's almost always obvious from the UI. What you don't get is an
explanation of what the controls do and how to use them intelligently.

I've looked at a lot of software in recent years that I've binned
because I simply couldn't work out what the hell it was *for*. And once
upon a time, you could always find that out from a short description in
the brochure (or whatever).

Rowland.


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