Comment by gruseom
11 years ago
I've often wished for something like this. Most of us learn by example.
I fear that the humor in it, much as I like humor, is a mistake. First, it comes across as a gender troll. Any technical attention the tool receives will be smothered by that avalanche. (Exhibit A: this thread.) More importantly, it impedes how the tool needs to work: get to the point immediately and cut everything else. Man pages may be Byzantine, but they do this well.
If I need examples for curl, examples for curl are all I want to see. They should be laid out readably and minimally (a nontrivial design problem). The last thing I want is a joke repeated everywhere. I'd say the same about the upvoting and downvoting stuff that appears in there: it's extraneous and distracting.
When I'm stuck on a shell command, it's usually because I have a specific task I'm trying to do. All I want is for the light bulb in my head to switch on so I can go "Oh I get it!" and go off to do the task. The best way is to see an example that's close enough to what I'm trying to do that it's like a magnet that attracts my specific task and snaps it in place. That's why I like the idea of this tool. It should focus on getting the user to that moment as quickly as possible.
> I'd say the same about the upvoting and downvoting stuff that appears in there: it's extraneous and distracting.
It's a sorting mechanism. This is basically like Urban Dictionary but for Unix.
But yeah, it would be nice to hide the instructions after every single entry.
I fear I am dismissing it too quickly, probably because of gender troll dread syndrome.
If it works, it will be useful.