From: Derrick 'dman' Hudson (dmandman13.dyndns.org)
Date: Fri Aug 01 2003 - 15:41:37 CDT

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On Fri, Aug 01, 2003 at 02:50:28PM -0400, Chateauneuf wrote:
| On Fri, 2003-08-01 at 14:19, Dean Strik wrote:
| > Chateauneuf wrote:
| >
| > The postmap manpage is extremely clear about 'keys', so if you want to
| > use postmap, reading the manpage should remove any such ambiguity here.
| >
| It is. I was confused. The confusion is resolved. Explaining the source
| of the confusion is not a criticism. I found the document and the man
| page to be inconsistent. Others may not. Weitse seems to have the
| necessary ego strengths and erudition to reach his own conclusions;
| ignoring what is pedantic on my part and - possibly - revising
| documentation that could be ambiguous or inconsistent.

It is only ambigous to people who don't understand terminology used in
the field of software. Would you claim that a medical book is
ambigous because it sometimes uses latin names for things? Or because
something has more than one name?

"String" is the name people use to refer to a basic data type handled
by computers. If you think the name string in documentation is
ambiguous, then you probably oughtn't to be operating your own
computer. Anyone familiar with software or reading software manuals
will instantly recognize that style of writing and understand it.

| > > The fact that an input file works with makemap does NOT
| > > necessarily mean that it works with postmap.

True, but the format *IS* fully documented.

| > > The documentation does not include the input file on the command
| > > line.
| >
| > Can't confirm. The manpage for postmap clearly discusses input files:

Indeed.

| > file_name
| > The name of the lookup table source file when
| > rebuilding a database.
|
| That is not the same as the referenced "command-line <input file."

It is. If you read further you'll see that (as is common with UNIX
software) the name '-' can be used to indicate reading from stdin
instead of a file on disk. The '<' notation is well understood to
refer to a (UNIX, naturally) shell. There is no need for Wietse to
reproduce documentation detailling the workings of a shell just to
explain an example shell command in postfix' documentation, right?

| Why are people so defensive? I'm neither complaining nor being
| critical.

Saying that the documentation doesn't contain the information it
contains is likely to be taken as criticism. In addition, you did
quite blatantly critize Wietse for not changing those parts of the
documentation which are there and are quite explicit just because you
didn't know what the conventions (not specific nor limited to postfix)
are.

You'll also have to give Jim a some leeway here -- he's understandably
a bit perturbed after Robin's repeated gloating with pride at running
his business computer systems personally without an IT professional,
all the while soliciting volunteer support from IT professionals (and
hobbyists, but Jim falls in the professional category). There isn't
anything wrong with requesting help in a forum such as this, however
don't claim to be superior to those helping you :-). (/me wonders if
Robin is reading this)

| What's "clear" to you may not be clear to me.
|
| I mentioned the other day that we did a project documenting a very
| complex hedging program using options (written and acquired) and various
| convertible instruments. I suspect that what is clear or obvious to me
| may not be clear to you.
|
| > There is a difference between *using* Unix, and *administering* Unix. I
| > cannot recommend the latter if there is no experience with *using* Unix.
|
| I'm sure that there is. Of course we are a relatively small firm and the
| administrative scope is limited to Postfix and Apache.

And the entire OS. You can't run postfix (or apache) on bare
hardware, so you _must_ also be administering all the platform support
that they require :-).

-D

--
You can't assign IP address 127.0.0.1 to the loopback adapter,
because it is a reserved address for loopback devices
(Microsoft Windows XP - P R O F E S S I O N A L)
 
http://dman13.dyndns.org/~dman/

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