On Sat, 22 Oct 2011 10:32:38 +0100, Orchid XP v8 wrote:

>>> Well, you know, that's what manpages do. They give you a terse
>>> reference to the bare essentials of what a tool does. That doesn't
>>> seem like much of an "assumption" to me.
>>
>> I learned to script in bash using the manpage.  That's not exactly a
>> terse one - again, hard to generalise about this kind of thing.
> 
>  From what I recall, the manpage for Bash practically lists the entire
> BNF grammar for the scripting language. Great if you're trying to
> reimplement Bash for some reason, almost useless if you want to actually
> LEARN HOW TO USE IT.

It is a comprehensive reference for the language, yes.  Learning how to 
use it is like learning how to use any programming language.

> A reference manual is no substitute for an introduction.

True, but I didn't need an introduction.  I suspect you wouldn't need an 
introduction to programming either, if you approached it the way I did.

In this particular instance, it was during a hands-on certification 
exam.  I worked out pseudocode for what I wanted the script to do, and 
then used the manpage to figure out the syntax.

Note that I wouldn't recommend that anyone try to learn a scripting 
language while taking a certification exam - I just happened to be in 
that situation, and while I was making a serious attempt at the exam (and 
I did pass, though not with full points for the script I wrote), I wasn't 
concerned about cost or having to take it again.  Most people would be.

Jim

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