[Toybox] [PATCH] toys.h: remove unused declaration.

[Rob Landley]

On 11/2/20 11:52 AM, enh wrote:
>>> --help` is about installation and the like anyway. i also have strong
>>> anecdata that people read man7.org more than they read any of toybox's
>>> --help output anyway :-/
>>
>> Sure, because it's got an index. :)
> 
> i think more likely a combination of "because it's indexed by Google"
> and "because it's easier to search in a web page" and "because i don't
> trust my distro to have the latest version of the man page".

Indexed by Google and also indexed by
https://man7.org/linux/man-pages/dir_section_1.html

> fwiw, i've found that most people are ignorant of all the introductory
> material that's in the man pages too. i genuinely think that only the
> heavy hammer of appending something like "For general information see
> `toybox --help`" is likely to work, and even there we struggle to
> convey "this is stuff that's actually useful for you to read, not just
> copyright blurbs and the like!" :-)

On wednesday I added:

$ toybox ls --help | head -n 1
Toybox 0.8.4 multicall binary: https://landley.net/toybox (see toybox --help)

But I'm regretting it because it only fits in 80 chars for release versions, not
for ones with hashes:

./toybox ls --help | head -n 1
Toybox 0.8.4-3-gaed6c26fe479 multicall binary: https://landley.net/toybox (see
toybox --help)

Hmmm...

> i don't think the FSF have helped here

A sadly universal statement.

> with very verbose (but not
> usually very helpful) --help output, and a lackadaisical approach to
> man pages in favor of info pages (which almost no one actually reads,
> and which have basically been another pressure towards "just use
> Google").

The FSF is a political lobby with a vestigial software arm. I've understood that
ever since
https://developers.slashdot.org/story/03/08/13/1530239/fsf-ftp-site-cracked-looking-for-md5-sums
(which I'm the one who reported to slashdot WEEKS after it happened because I
was doing lfs/firmware/aboriginal and nobody'd done anything about the source
packages vanishing).

But what I realized when their site was hacked was they'd already gone ~5 years
since the last tar release, despite every distro having already patched in -j,
and none of their other projects were in noticeably better shape, plus of course
https://gcc.gnu.org/wiki/History#EGCS because writing and maintaining software
(and documentation) is never what the FSF was _for_. Compared to what all the
Linux guys were doing, it was creaky and archaic.

These days, of course, FSF source packages vanishing off their website is done
intentionally in pursuit of their licensing crusade:

https://landley.net/notes-2012.html#11-01-2012
https://lwn.net/Articles/176582/

Meanwhile the rest of us have to mirror stuff that's already widely available or
risk getting sued by the FSF:

https://www.linux.com/news/gpl-requirement-could-have-chilling-effect-derivative-distros/

And don't forget the time Bradley Cooper removed the safe harbor provision I'd
added to the busybox license page (at first denying he'd done so, then
explaining why he'd done it):

http://lists.busybox.net/pipermail/uclibc/2015-June/049004.html

And of course Bradley's at it again (https://lwn.net/Articles/833277/) and I'm
TRYING not to care, but...

https://lwn.net/Articles/833450/

Ahem. I don't think the FSF have helped here either.

> fwiw, i think things like your `sed --help` strike a good balance ---
> a decent quick reference for folks who more or less know what they're
> doing. unlike GNU sed which is just the command line options, or any
> realistic sed manual which is going to need a lot of examples.

Thanks, I'm trying. Toybox doesn't implement the man pages exactly, and even has
a few unique features (gnu sort hasn't got -x), plus you're not always connected
to the internet. (Blasphemy I know, but it's true.)

Rob