[TUHS] On Bloat and the Idea of Small Specialized Tools

[Larry McVoy]

On Sat, May 18, 2024 at 02:07:38PM -0400, Douglas McIlroy wrote:
> I just revisited this ironic echo of Mies van der Rohe's aphorism, "Less is
> more".
>        % less --help | wc
>       298
> Last time I looked, the line count was about 220. Bloat is self-catalyzing.
> 
> What prompted me to look was another disheartening discovery. The "small
> special tool" Gnu diff has a 95-page manual!  And it doesn't cover the
> option I was looking up (-h). To be fair, the manual includes related
> programs like diff3(1), sdiff(1) and patch(1), but the original manual for
> each fit on one page.

Normally I agree with Doug but on documentation, the less is more leaves me
cold.  It's fine when it is V7 cat that had maybe an option or two.  GNU
diff is a complex beast and it needs lots of docs.

Personally, I like it when man pages have a few usage examples, the BitKeeper
docs are like that.  But I'm ok with a terse man page with a SEE ALSO that
points to a user guide.

Docs should be helpful.
-- 
---
Larry McVoy           Retired to fishing          http://www.mcvoy.com/lm/boat