Re: Chapters of the manual (was: Bug#1018737: /usr/bin/rst2man: rst2man: .TH 5th field shouldn't be empty)

[Ralph Corderoy]

Hi Alejandro,

> 'chapter' definitely makes more sense, at least considering the manual
> as a book.  Since it seems to have been in general use in the past,
> it's not so much of a breaking change to start using it now again.

Yes it is a breaking.  This is a terrible idea.  Colin Watson's man(1)
has -s to specify a section and talks of sections throughout.

Plan 9's man page refers to section.

Working with Unix from the ’80s, including many different commercial
versions, and reading dozens of published Unix books which pre-date the
web, I have only seen section be used, not chapter.

> With time, I expect to replace all occurrences of section that should
> be chapter in the man-pages.

There are projects which need custodians rather than radicals.

-- 
Cheers, Ralph.