/etc/motd summary

[Bryan Drewery]

On 9/8/2014 4:38 PM, Warren Block wrote:
> On Mon, 8 Sep 2014, Bryan Drewery wrote:
> 
>> On 9/8/2014 2:08 PM, Warren Block wrote:
>>> Summarizing the responses and changes to /etc/motd:
>>>
>>>   Using ANSI has both philosphical and practical problems, and should be
>>>   avoided.  In short, it has cooties.
>>>
>>>   Extra horizontal whitespace is the least likely to cause problems as
>>>   command delimiters, and inoffensive to most responders.  Rearranging
>>>   the information into a list of URLs is a net win.
>>>
>>>   Shorter is better.  A simpler motd that links to a single web page
>>>   might be acceptable.
>>>
>>> My suggestions:
>>>
>>> Short-term:
>>>
>>> Here is the most popular/least objectionable version with all of the
>>> suggestions implemented as best I could:
>>>
>>> http://www.wonkity.com/~wblock/motd/motd.whitespace-url
>>
>>  For other languages, replace "en" with a language code like de or fr.
>>
>> Should de and fr also be quoted?
> 
> That was intentional.  The "en" being the part that the user is to
> replace, there is no ambiguity with those quotes--they don't exist in
> the source.  With the de and fr, no quotes are shown so the user is not
> tempted to enter them, and the de alone shows that the final period
> after fr is not part of the language code.
> 
>> I don't mean to bikeshed on this but I find the spaced commands
>> confusing. I find quoted commands more readable:
>>
>>  Please include the output of 'uname -a' and any relevant error
>> messages...
>>  Use 'man man' for an introduction to manual pages. 'man hier'
>> describes the.
>>
>> or `cmd` or `cmd'
> 
> Right, but you are used to the conventions.  The idea here is to only
> show the reader what they have to type* without forcing them to interpret.
> 
>   % 'uname -a'
>   uname -a: Command not found.
>   % 'man man'
>   man man: Command not found.
>   % `man hier`
>   Unknown user: ftp;.
>   % `man hier'
>   Unmatched `.
> 
> The third one is particularly intriguing.
> 
> [*: admittedly, we are not telling them that they have to press Enter.
> There is just not enough space for a quick intro on entering CLI
> commands.  But we could have one on a "FreeBSD Support Links" page.]

I understand what you're saying, although I've never had someone
complain to me that they ran 'cmd' literally.

On the other hand, the spaces are very unclear that it is even a command
that can be ran in 'man man' and 'man hier' uses.

The old motd has `cmd' syntax.

-- 
Regards,
Bryan Drewery

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