[Tfug] Another poser

[Rich]

On Jul 11, 2007, at 5:10 pm, Bexley Hall wrote:

> E.g., [...] the floobydust command [...] you could
> set it in bold courier, etc. and, thus, set it
> apart from "regular text".
>
> But, if you have to resort to straight ASCII text
> to document something (i.e. in your sources or
> supporting documents w/o the benefit of web/tangle)
> then that "notational shorthand" really is worth
> its weight in lead!  :-)

So we're talking technical writing rather than a straight  
philosophical debate? In that case, because it's new and unfamiliar,  
you'd resort to grammatical and editorial cues, e.g.:

	"The new command 'floobydust' is used to confragulate etc."

Use of quotes around the command would only be used first time  
around, pretty much like any text where you introduce an unfamiliar  
term.

In this case, I'd recommend *not* saying

	"If you're really stuck with deconfragulation in your  
whatchamacallits, you should use floobydust(1)."

because that *implies* there's a manual to be read. If there isn't  
one but it gives options with '--help', you could get away with:

	"If you're really stuck with deconfragulation in your  
whatchamacallits, you should use floobydust (try 'floobydust --help'  
for options)."

And the reason for this last example is that if indeed "--help"  
*doesn't* give any useful results, then these two end up being as  
useful as one another:

	floobydust(1)
	floobydust --help

Referring to a nonexistent man page doesn't really help.

R.