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Old 1st June 2011
thirdm thirdm is offline
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Join Date: May 2009
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Quote:
Originally Posted by BSDfan666 View Post
This is kind of old news, but it reaffirms the obsession people have with "soon-to-be-outdated-3rd-party-material".

Read the fine manuals, the FAQ, and source, it's all the documentation you need.
I'll be buying it. I read a lot of Absolute FreeBSD and found it enjoyable and helpful. For me it will likely complement the man pages and FAQ. Perhaps between source, man pages, and FAQ all the information I need is actually available without the book, but the form documentation takes is not irrelevant. The man pages are mostly very good, as is the FAQ, but Michael Lucas is a better writer than any of those who created either. Perhaps it's a closer race between him and Nick Holland, but still, it's not simply "third party material" but third party material by a gifted technical writer who knows BSD well.

The staleness factor isn't that relevant. You don't use a book like this as your reference so much as a one time tutorial or something to fall back on when you want to step back to understand the purpose for which a program exists, high level introductory material, that sort of thing. The FAQ has some of that, the man pages don't and shouldn't.
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