<![CDATA[*gently grabs the cheeks of all programmers to stare deeply into their eyes*]]>*gently grabs the cheeks of all programmers to stare deeply into their eyes*

All I want is a dry tech manual. A boring, well indexed manual that defines every function. Not a chatbot. Not a training. Not a million "articles" that I have to search through. Not a "community forum".

My rice cooker came with one. I want one for every piece of software I have to interact with.

Go get yourself a technical writer if necessary.

I. Want. An. Instructional. Manual.

]]>https://forum.fedi.dk/topic/ffcdf687-0a46-4b3e-916b-d891872581ee/gently-grabs-the-cheeks-of-all-programmers-to-stare-deeply-into-their-eyesRSS for NodeThu, 11 Jun 2026 19:34:04 GMTWed, 27 May 2026 21:02:40 GMT60<![CDATA[Reply to *gently grabs the cheeks of all programmers to stare deeply into their eyes* on Sat, 06 Jun 2026 13:35:23 GMT]]>@CorvidCrone yes. I want to look on a simply organised manual. And if it's translated from another language I want for them to have stumped up for a proof-reader who's actually familiar with English as it's used. Just to tidy up the sometimes sort of correct but strangulated usages.

]]>https://forum.fedi.dk/post/https://c.im/users/capnthommo/statuses/116703423595527991https://forum.fedi.dk/post/https://c.im/users/capnthommo/statuses/116703423595527991Sat, 06 Jun 2026 13:35:23 GMT<![CDATA[Reply to *gently grabs the cheeks of all programmers to stare deeply into their eyes* on Sat, 06 Jun 2026 12:11:19 GMT]]>@CorvidCrone if like to add a note to this if I may ?

I don't want to watch a fucking YouTube video either

]]>https://forum.fedi.dk/post/https://mastodon.scot/users/BenartyComputer/statuses/116703093021995440https://forum.fedi.dk/post/https://mastodon.scot/users/BenartyComputer/statuses/116703093021995440Sat, 06 Jun 2026 12:11:19 GMT<![CDATA[Reply to *gently grabs the cheeks of all programmers to stare deeply into their eyes* on Thu, 04 Jun 2026 04:55:16 GMT]]>@lhauser @clew @CorvidCrone

"Dude! You think there's a lot of data? Just wait until you see the metadata!" πŸ˜‚

]]>https://forum.fedi.dk/post/https://wandering.shop/users/cavyherd/statuses/116690053767259770https://forum.fedi.dk/post/https://wandering.shop/users/cavyherd/statuses/116690053767259770Thu, 04 Jun 2026 04:55:16 GMT<![CDATA[Reply to *gently grabs the cheeks of all programmers to stare deeply into their eyes* on Thu, 04 Jun 2026 03:57:01 GMT]]>@clew @cavyherd @CorvidCrone I learned about concordances from Strong's Bible Concordance...a huge, hardbound volume, bigger than any Bible I ever possessed.

]]>https://forum.fedi.dk/post/https://mefi.social/users/lhauser/statuses/116689824766055613https://forum.fedi.dk/post/https://mefi.social/users/lhauser/statuses/116689824766055613Thu, 04 Jun 2026 03:57:01 GMT<![CDATA[Reply to *gently grabs the cheeks of all programmers to stare deeply into their eyes* on Wed, 03 Jun 2026 02:30:21 GMT]]>@CorvidCrone

One year, long ago, at Comdex, a local firing range offered the chance to shoot anything inanimate with the heat of your choosing.

The top draw was IBM manuals, with Uzis.

Just saying' πŸ˜…

]]>https://forum.fedi.dk/post/https://mstdn.ca/users/teledyn/statuses/116683821614227214https://forum.fedi.dk/post/https://mstdn.ca/users/teledyn/statuses/116683821614227214Wed, 03 Jun 2026 02:30:21 GMT<![CDATA[Reply to *gently grabs the cheeks of all programmers to stare deeply into their eyes* on Wed, 03 Jun 2026 01:49:31 GMT]]>@CorvidCrone preach it brother preach it loud ++

]]>https://forum.fedi.dk/post/https://mastodon.sdf.org/users/roly/statuses/116683661057381054https://forum.fedi.dk/post/https://mastodon.sdf.org/users/roly/statuses/116683661057381054Wed, 03 Jun 2026 01:49:31 GMT<![CDATA[Reply to *gently grabs the cheeks of all programmers to stare deeply into their eyes* on Mon, 01 Jun 2026 13:30:33 GMT]]>@CorvidCrone Compassionate fucking Buddha this!

]]>https://forum.fedi.dk/post/https://mstdn.social/users/ZDL/statuses/116675093069638126https://forum.fedi.dk/post/https://mstdn.social/users/ZDL/statuses/116675093069638126Mon, 01 Jun 2026 13:30:33 GMT<![CDATA[Reply to *gently grabs the cheeks of all programmers to stare deeply into their eyes* on Mon, 01 Jun 2026 09:07:58 GMT]]>@oldmankris @CorvidCrone Actually I was in the room where they had the shelf with the VMS manuals πŸ™‚ Which was a sort of 'storeroom' where we were in 3 people in. I used to work at that time with systems that came with 'massive HW manuals' and we had to write SW for and I mean those type of manuals where even the panel screws were listed and had a code like 0039-11537528 or such 😊 Mind you often some manuals were sold separately at high price. I remember things like the X.25 book and such ..

]]>https://forum.fedi.dk/post/https://toot.wales/users/gilesgoat/statuses/116674060497169077https://forum.fedi.dk/post/https://toot.wales/users/gilesgoat/statuses/116674060497169077Mon, 01 Jun 2026 09:07:58 GMT<![CDATA[Reply to *gently grabs the cheeks of all programmers to stare deeply into their eyes* on Mon, 01 Jun 2026 08:19:27 GMT]]>@cyancqueak @drwho @CorvidCrone yeah, a bunch of software just uses GUIs for nicer setup of the batch processing pipeline. Those are all fine, turns out we have by now figured out batch processing
Biggest issue with batch processing is the very slow feedback cycle for errors, but that's solved by aiming for slower churn and more slack for unexpected errors and any work envionment that does that is better off for it anyway ^^

]]>https://forum.fedi.dk/post/https://mastodon.chaosfield.at/users/dequbed/statuses/116673869733165168https://forum.fedi.dk/post/https://mastodon.chaosfield.at/users/dequbed/statuses/116673869733165168Mon, 01 Jun 2026 08:19:27 GMT<![CDATA[Reply to *gently grabs the cheeks of all programmers to stare deeply into their eyes* on Mon, 01 Jun 2026 06:32:44 GMT]]>@CorvidCrone
Most sane take on the fedi in a week.

]]>https://forum.fedi.dk/post/https://mastodon.giftedmc.com/users/haui/statuses/116673450109891101https://forum.fedi.dk/post/https://mastodon.giftedmc.com/users/haui/statuses/116673450109891101Mon, 01 Jun 2026 06:32:44 GMT<![CDATA[Reply to *gently grabs the cheeks of all programmers to stare deeply into their eyes* on Mon, 01 Jun 2026 05:41:53 GMT]]>@tusharhero @CorvidCrone

More verbose, anyway. Harder to use as references. Like the difference between a document and a website.

]]>https://forum.fedi.dk/post/https://ohai.social/users/resuna/statuses/116673250160471771https://forum.fedi.dk/post/https://ohai.social/users/resuna/statuses/116673250160471771Mon, 01 Jun 2026 05:41:53 GMT<![CDATA[Reply to *gently grabs the cheeks of all programmers to stare deeply into their eyes* on Mon, 01 Jun 2026 03:56:13 GMT]]>@resuna @CorvidCrone Info manuals are strictly superior to man pages though.

]]>https://forum.fedi.dk/post/https://mathstodon.xyz/users/tusharhero/statuses/116672834694099288https://forum.fedi.dk/post/https://mathstodon.xyz/users/tusharhero/statuses/116672834694099288Mon, 01 Jun 2026 03:56:13 GMT<![CDATA[Reply to *gently grabs the cheeks of all programmers to stare deeply into their eyes* on Mon, 01 Jun 2026 03:55:18 GMT]]>@CorvidCrone GNU Info manuals are good

]]>https://forum.fedi.dk/post/https://mathstodon.xyz/users/tusharhero/statuses/116672831090546775https://forum.fedi.dk/post/https://mathstodon.xyz/users/tusharhero/statuses/116672831090546775Mon, 01 Jun 2026 03:55:18 GMT<![CDATA[Reply to *gently grabs the cheeks of all programmers to stare deeply into their eyes* on Mon, 01 Jun 2026 03:19:27 GMT]]>@gilesgoat @CorvidCrone I was so lucky in my first job: my cubicle was right next to all the shelves of VMS and other OS docs. Nice to browse through during the two-hour compile times.

]]>https://forum.fedi.dk/post/https://mastodon.xyz/users/oldmankris/statuses/116672690124949953https://forum.fedi.dk/post/https://mastodon.xyz/users/oldmankris/statuses/116672690124949953Mon, 01 Jun 2026 03:19:27 GMT<![CDATA[Reply to *gently grabs the cheeks of all programmers to stare deeply into their eyes* on Mon, 01 Jun 2026 02:12:40 GMT]]>@CorvidCrone

<whiny voice>
"Bbut instruction manuals are haaard."
πŸ™„

Extra steps that are important:
1) Have that technical writer's work vetted by the people that wrote the software.
2) Bare minimum make the manual available as a PDF, ideally a printed on paper manual TOO!

]]>https://forum.fedi.dk/post/https://techhub.social/users/nlarson830/statuses/116672427499990302https://forum.fedi.dk/post/https://techhub.social/users/nlarson830/statuses/116672427499990302Mon, 01 Jun 2026 02:12:40 GMT<![CDATA[Reply to *gently grabs the cheeks of all programmers to stare deeply into their eyes* on Mon, 01 Jun 2026 01:57:20 GMT]]>@dequbed @drwho @CorvidCrone pleasingly the ANSYS of 2007 came with a manual that told you everything that every function and setting did. Those were the days of the GUI mostly being a tool to write a text file for the computational bit.

]]>https://forum.fedi.dk/post/https://dice.camp/users/cyancqueak/statuses/116672367216191582https://forum.fedi.dk/post/https://dice.camp/users/cyancqueak/statuses/116672367216191582Mon, 01 Jun 2026 01:57:20 GMT<![CDATA[Reply to *gently grabs the cheeks of all programmers to stare deeply into their eyes* on Mon, 01 Jun 2026 01:56:22 GMT]]>@CorvidCrone yes, this. I love a good manual. Contents, index and a good search function.
Hubby has been told over the years that one of the reasons he’s such a good programmer is that he notates his code as he goes so it’s easy for others to see what he’s done and, later, to modify it without causing a chain reaction.

]]>https://forum.fedi.dk/post/https://mastodon.social/users/DarkMatterZine/statuses/116672363365687175https://forum.fedi.dk/post/https://mastodon.social/users/DarkMatterZine/statuses/116672363365687175Mon, 01 Jun 2026 01:56:22 GMT<![CDATA[Reply to *gently grabs the cheeks of all programmers to stare deeply into their eyes* on Mon, 01 Jun 2026 01:48:54 GMT]]>@CorvidCrone I don't think it is programmers you need to convince of this.

]]>https://forum.fedi.dk/post/https://dice.camp/users/wordman/statuses/116672334042207500https://forum.fedi.dk/post/https://dice.camp/users/wordman/statuses/116672334042207500Mon, 01 Jun 2026 01:48:54 GMT<![CDATA[Reply to *gently grabs the cheeks of all programmers to stare deeply into their eyes* on Sun, 31 May 2026 18:26:36 GMT]]>@CorvidCrone No video on YT either, asking me to like share and subscribe, spending 3/4 of the time talking about and around the problem before giving a solution which is hardly a solution at all which they then link to another solution…… fuuuuuu

]]>https://forum.fedi.dk/post/https://mastodon.social/users/swade2569/statuses/116670594814505434https://forum.fedi.dk/post/https://mastodon.social/users/swade2569/statuses/116670594814505434Sun, 31 May 2026 18:26:36 GMT<![CDATA[Reply to *gently grabs the cheeks of all programmers to stare deeply into their eyes* on Sat, 30 May 2026 21:24:28 GMT]]>@CorvidCrone unfortunately in the current state of things it's more likely you get a chatbot sent to you with a rice cooker *sigh*

]]>https://forum.fedi.dk/post/https://indiepocalypse.social/users/gourd/statuses/116665631956078172https://forum.fedi.dk/post/https://indiepocalypse.social/users/gourd/statuses/116665631956078172Sat, 30 May 2026 21:24:28 GMT<![CDATA[Reply to *gently grabs the cheeks of all programmers to stare deeply into their eyes* on Sat, 30 May 2026 18:20:20 GMT]]>@CorvidCrone And I certainly don't want to have to watch a half hour YouTube video that may or may not turn out to be for the same version...

]]>https://forum.fedi.dk/post/https://peoplemaking.games/users/IanBadcoe/statuses/116664907914944955https://forum.fedi.dk/post/https://peoplemaking.games/users/IanBadcoe/statuses/116664907914944955Sat, 30 May 2026 18:20:20 GMT<![CDATA[Reply to *gently grabs the cheeks of all programmers to stare deeply into their eyes* on Sat, 30 May 2026 13:55:24 GMT]]>@CorvidCrone user manuals, service manuals I keep from the parts and equipment along with the start-up reports I collate next to the equipment I service and maintain

]]>https://forum.fedi.dk/post/https://mastodon.social/ap/users/115641775918198712/statuses/116663866111313622https://forum.fedi.dk/post/https://mastodon.social/ap/users/115641775918198712/statuses/116663866111313622Sat, 30 May 2026 13:55:24 GMT<![CDATA[Reply to *gently grabs the cheeks of all programmers to stare deeply into their eyes* on Sat, 30 May 2026 13:44:26 GMT]]>@CorvidCrone I got an archive.org record of a blog post that links a badly-compressed youtube video of a talk that has a briefly skipped past slide with a sentence about the API you're interested in.

I'm surprised there's no sign "Beware of the Leopard".

(There are bits of LLVM's advanced features that feel like they're documented exactly like this. Maybe they improved it. I doubt it, but maybe...)

]]>https://forum.fedi.dk/post/https://cyberplace.social/users/dkf/statuses/116663823024015232https://forum.fedi.dk/post/https://cyberplace.social/users/dkf/statuses/116663823024015232Sat, 30 May 2026 13:44:26 GMT<![CDATA[Reply to *gently grabs the cheeks of all programmers to stare deeply into their eyes* on Sat, 30 May 2026 13:37:25 GMT]]>@CorvidCrone

Sorry, best I can do is an excruciating and meandering 29-minute long YouTube video sponsored by Nord VPN.

]]>https://forum.fedi.dk/post/https://infosec.exchange/users/DaveMWilburn/statuses/116663795448591793https://forum.fedi.dk/post/https://infosec.exchange/users/DaveMWilburn/statuses/116663795448591793Sat, 30 May 2026 13:37:25 GMT