Why questions don't get answered, or "No, I've already RTFM, tell me the answer!"

[Thomas Cameron]

On Fri, 2005-12-30 at 06:21 -0500, Gene Heskett wrote:

> >
> >Often the man pages have examples of the way the author expected
> >the program to be used.  However, there's still a good chance
> >that isn't exactly what you want to do with it.
> 
> I submit to you all the manpages for bash.

<snip>

> I rest my case.

Man pages are *not* intended, nor should they be relied upon, to learn
something new.  They are there as reference pages - you go to the man
page to look up details or finer points.

In the case of bash, I would look at http://www.tldp.org/LDP/Bash-
Beginners-Guide/html/ followed up with
http://www.tldp.org/LDP/abs/html/.

As with pretty much any complex piece of software, there is usually a
"getting started" guide and a reference guide.  You should not start
with the reference guide, you should look over the "getting started"
docs first.

Thomas