Re: RC Scripts question

On Mon, Nov 26, 2012 at 10:42:16PM -0800, Bradley D. Thornton wrote:
> On 11/25/2012 08:10 PM, Noel Butler wrote:
> > On Sun, 2012-11-25 at 16:02 -0800, Bradley D. Thornton wrote:
> >> On 11/25/2012 04:06 AM, Noel Butler wrote:
> >>> On Sun, 2012-11-25 at 11:44 +1000, Nick Edwards wrote:
> >>
> >>>> google is full of so much mis-information)?
> >>>
> >>> Now, that we can agree on
> >>
> >> That doesn't have the ring of a true assessment based on factual 
> >> evidence. Google is just the index - and you're complaining 
> >> about the accuracy of the indexed sites (Not owned or operated 
> >> by google), where the actual erroneous content is located.
> > 
> > If you go to a library looking for information but cant find it 
> > right away in the index system because someone stashed 3000 
> > fiction book listings in with the facts stuff, you do blame the 
> > library - google is no different, they control how the indexing 
> > and page ranking is done, so it is their problem.
> 
> I didn't intend this as a personal attack.

FWIW, it did not come across as such to me.

> Please consider the *you* to mean "you", "me", or "he/she" that 
> goes into that library card catalog index.
> 
> If *I* go to through the index files and can't find what I'm 
> looking for, then *I* apparently must not know wtf I'm doing... 
> otherwise it isn't there.
> 
> The point I intended to make was that regardless of the notion as 
> to whether google is inept or evil or whatever moniker one would 
> place upon it as a result of a simple search that yields only 
> mucketymuck, it is still a wonderful tool (as are the index cards 
> at the library) for finding what it is we're looking for.

What I think we can point out here is something I have preached a 
long time: always RTFM before you STFW. 

     ****************************************
     ***   Always RTFM before you STFW.   ***
     ****************************************

Look how easily the bash(1) manual and its internal help feature 
("help .", although perhaps no one has mentioned that yet here) 
answered the OP's question.

Google, or more specifically, the use thereof, failed in that goal.

Yes, Google has its place. I turn to el Goog when faced with an 
unfamilar or unclear error message. In that case the exact error, 
quoted, accompanied by the name of the software, often finds relevant 
results.

But when I want to know how a particular piece of software works, my 
first stop is in the documentation that came with it. I might look 
around in /usr/doc/$PROJECT-$VERSION, or I might hit "man $COMMAND". 
One very nice GUI tool we have is Konqueror's built-in man browser, 
"man:$COMMAND".

Documentation varies widely in quality, from near perfect to near 
useless. Fortunately we see a lot more tending toward the upper end 
of that scale, and less toward the lower, among free software 
projects.

We in GNU/Linuxland enjoy the best-documented operating system ever, 
along with the best-documented software that runs on it. I enjoy 
saying this amidst beginners because of the shock value, but yet, it 
is the absolute truth. Maybe the BSDs come close, but overall I am 
sure we have a lot more people working on documentation.

Some of our documentation, such as the GNU bash manual which was 
featured upthread, is rather obtuse and unapproachable. It's an 
excellent reference, but not a howto. But not to worry! There are 
many good shell user tutorials available. Beginners CAN bring 
themselves up to speed.

The hard part, I guess, is knowing where to start. Burnout happens 
for those who try to run before they have learned to walk.

> Furthermore, it isn't the indexers fault that cruft is overwhelming 
> in those results, but rather, that the targeted searches limited in 
> scope to that which the actual results which we search for are 
> returned is a factor of how well we are able to use that tool to 
> search for the information we seek.
> 
> I think you can admit that throwing a large net to gather all of 
> the possible data in some regard has its shortcomings, but then 
> again, the Yahoo directory charged money, or extreme time, to 
> include pertinent links to such data in a world where such a 
> business model was no longer sustainable (some would say R.I.P 
> DMOZ).
> 
> We as a collective of persons who seek particular information must 
> rise to the occasion of more precise and limiting search criteria 
> to sift beyond the cruft that invariably will be included in an 
> automated indexing of crap that exists in the pool of places that 
> such index services can in fact index.
> 
> I purport that it isn't actually google, or bing, or altavista that 
> constitute the problem in retrieving results that constitute what 
> you and I might consider to be SPAM, but rather, the SPAMmers 
> themselves.

It's not just spam (BTW the uppercase "SPAM[tm]" is Hormel's 
trademark. :) ) The problem extends to millions of well-meaning 
bloggers and forum/mailing-list/newsgroup posters who are trying to 
help, but sadly, have no business writing documentation for things 
that they barely understand at best, and often completely 
misunderstood.

It's the proverbial millions of monkeys on typewriters. Eventually 
they might peck out the whole works of Shakespeare. They have not 
done so, yet. And we can expect a whole lot more garbage before that 
happens.

No indexing system can accurately judge the quality of the works. 
Even dead-tree libraries have junk works. If the librarian had an 
opinion that something was not worth the paper it was printed on, 
there's no way within standard library indexing systems for that 
opinion to be shared. (And then, how would you know how highly to 
regard the librarian's opinion?)

> And I propose that we must become more adept at pre- 
> disqualification of such spam by being more obtuse in the 
> submission of our search criteria strings and boolean logic;
> else we resign ourselves to postulating that it is the tool
> itself that is the SPAMmer.
> 
> It's only a freakin' robot, after all :)
> 
> I apologize to you both personally, and in particular, if my 
> earlier post seemed to infer that it was you who were the ogre. 
> That was not my intent at all, as I purport that I hate SPAM as 
> much as you (Prolly even more), and the next joe, and the next
> joe, and the next jane.
> 
> I'll close now with a quote:
> 
> <quote>
> Ultimately, shit will happen. It also happens to fly farther when
> using tools. -- Robby Workman.
> </quote>
> 
> I hope that helps :)

Very nice, and a good post, Bradley. Go forth and preach the Gospel 
according to RTFM. :)
-- 
  http://rob0.nodns4.us/ -- system administration and consulting
  Offlist GMX mail is seen only if "/dev/rob0" is in the Subject: