Re: Style Guide for UNIX?

[Janice Gelb <Janice -dot- Gelb -at- Sun -dot- COM>]

beelia wrote:
> I worked at Sun for many years, and I understand you work there now.
> I'm sure Solaris is second nature to you, and you understand exactly 
> what you're doing when you write a command line procedure. You've 
> probably not only walked through those procedures, but corrected them or 
> filed bugs when they don't work as the engineer intended.
> 
> However, I've worked with many writers who are unfamiliar with UNIX 
> commands, and I've had to review and correct their documents. UNIX isn't 
> intuitive, and if you "sort of" have an idea of what it means, it's not 
> the same as knowing what it means.
> 
> So my comment was just cautionary. It's relevant especially if you're 
> unfamiliar to the point that you don't know about its case-sensitivity. 
> My message was - when you write up a UNIX procedure, be careful to 
> either get it right on your own, or consult your SME before you change 
> the smallest thing.
> 

I think that any time you aren't sure you understand
a step-by-step procedure you need to consult your SME,
no matter which OS you're documenting. I'm afraid I
don't agree that specifically for UNIX documentation
you need to consult your SME "before you change the
smallest thing." Changing "3. cd to the directory" to
"3. Change to the directory using the cd command" is
not a change that needs to be brought to an SME for
verification.

-- Janice

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