Re: Proposal to remove catman(8)

[Robert Elz <kre%munnari.OZ.AU@localhost>]

    Date:        Mon, 9 Nov 2020 19:05:23 +0100
    From:        Kamil Rytarowski <kamil%netbsd.org@localhost>
    Message-ID:  <04c9e1ad-df4e-1372-74d3-a17fdd5ddc09%netbsd.org@localhost>

  | I propose to remove catman(8).

Don't.

  |  - cat pages are not generated by default since 2012 and almost nobody
  | (except me?) used them in the past few years.

That's fine, and I have no problem with the removal of MKCATMAN (or
whatever the build.sh/make variable was).  That makes one less variation
that needs to be tested, and the need to remember to include the .catN
entries in the sets lists.   I'd support removing the generation of
html format as well for exactly the same reasons.  In both cases anyone
who finds these formats useful (including the man pages on www.netbsd.org)
can easily still generate them.

I doubt that you really know (or can possibly know) who uses anything though.

  |  - This tool was removed from other BSDs by default and catman is not a
  | part AFAICT of any Unix specification.

That's irrelevant.   catman isn't the only application we have that
no-one else has.

  |  - Passing the documentation through mandoc(1) enables dynamic
  | customization, while cat(1) cannot do much or anything as it operates on
  | pre-generated .txt files.

All true, but irrelevant.  If someone needs/desires the customisation,
they they run mandoc (or even nroff, or troff) and they can do whatever
they like.   People who are happy with pre-formatted man pages can use
them.  What's the harm?

  | Personally. I recall cat-pages to be relevant on Coherent 80286
  | UNIX-like OS, operating in real mode.

I recall them when they were first introduced - and I can assure you that
attempting to have 20 or more people all attempting to run nroff on a 780
(simultaneously) is no fun.   20 people running cat is unnoticeable.

  | Next, I propose to remove cat-man support from man(1) and man,conf(5).

Please don't, what's the point?

I really do not understand the desire to race around removing things.
That you don't see any use for them, doesn't mean that someone else
doesn't.  Stuff that is broken, and can't easily be fixed, or which
needs external resources which are no longer available can be removed.
Stuff which simply seems old, and perhaps not used as much as it once
was should just be left alone.

I suspect that there are much better things that you could be spending
time on than this kind of thing.

kre