>> Right. Well knowing what the command switches are isn't going to help me
>> configure Apache, is it?
>
> Yes, it won't.  But if you want to configure apache, you read the Apache
> documentation.

...which will only tell you how to do it via the configuration file 
interface which you keep insisting it isn't necessary to touch.

> Or if you've got the yast http module installed, you can try yast2 http-
> server longhelp for command-line help.

Which presumable again just tells you about command switches, not how to 
configure Apache using YaST.

>> If somebody told you that the Earth is in fact flat, would you take the
>> time to sit down and have a rational conversation with them? Or would
>> you just be like "psssh, yeah RIGHT! Bye..."
>
> So, to carry the analogy out, you believe the "Earth is flat" and you're
> not willing to be convinced otherwise?

More like you keep insisting that the Earth is flat, and then act all 
surprised when I don't immediately believe you.

> Um, nobody's saying that.  What I'm saying is that if you ask questions
> on relevant forums, you can actually get help to configure it and learn
> how it works.

I know how it works - not very well. (In varing degrees, anyway.) What's 
to ask?

> Unless you'd rather just bitch about how impossible everything is.

Let's be clear about this: I said that package management can be a pain 
sometimes. WHICH IS TRUE. I didn't say it was *impossible* to install 
anything. I just said sometimes it's very difficult to make it do the 
correct thing.

I pointed out a small deficiency in a piece of software, and everybody 
is like "no, you're just too stupid to work it correctly". As if no 
software ever has deficiencies...

> But you seem to enjoy learning new things.  Which means more than just
> reading books and websites - occasionally it means talking to people who
> know more about the topic than you do.
>
> See how that works?

Reading documentation can be quite enlightening - or not. It depends on 
how good the documentation is. IME, asking people is almost always an 
utter waste of time.

> When I pointed out that, hey, there are some tools (some of which are in
> fact standardised across different distributions) that mean you *don't*
> have to edit text files, you responded with incredulity.

The standard Unix philosophy is that programs are controlled mainly via 
the command line and via textual configuration files. Does every single 
piece of software available for Linux follow this model? No. Do the vast 
majority of them follow this model? Yes.

> My point is that while hard-core *nix utilities do tend to be that way,
> it's a mistake to think that that's the *only* way Linux programs are
> created - as a front-end to some cryptic CLI interface.

OK, fair enough.

-- 
http://blog.orphi.me.uk/
http://www.zazzle.com/MathematicalOrchid*

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