~sircmpwn/scdoc: Omit needless words, change description to UNIX/BSD style.

05ca9f20a8229a96f319eda99f0cfd725a51d3cb — Stephen Gregoratto 4 years ago 87e627c

Omit needless words, change description to UNIX/BSD style.

	Regardless of standards considerations, if there's any advice
	that needs to be hammered into man authors, it's to be concise
	and accurate, but not pedantic. As Will Strunk commanded,
	"Omit needless words."

	The most needless words of all are promotional. No man page
	should utter words like "powerful", "extraordinarily versatile",
	"user-friendly", or "has a wide range of options".

	-- Doug McIlroy[1]
	[1] https://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/groff/2018-11/msg00058.html

patch browse .tar.gz

2 files changed, 5 insertions(+), 7 deletions(-)

M scdoc.1.scd
M scdoc.5.scd

M scdoc.1.scd => scdoc.1.scd +4 -6

@@ 2,18 2,16 @@ scdoc(1)
 
 # NAME
 
-scdoc - tool for generating *roff*(7) manual pages
+scdoc - generate *man*(7) manual pages
 
 # SYNOPSIS
 
-*scdoc* < _input_ > _output_
+*scdoc* < _input_
 
 # DESCRIPTION
 
-scdoc is a tool designed to make the process of writing man pages more
-friendly. It reads scdoc syntax from stdin and writes roff to stdout, suitable
-for reading with *man*(1). For a description of the syntax of scdoc source
-files, see *scdoc*(5).
+The scdoc utility reads *scdoc*(5) syntax from the standard input and writes
+*man*(7) style roff to the standard output.
 
 # SEE ALSO

M scdoc.5.scd => scdoc.5.scd +1 -1

@@ 14,7 14,7 @@ Each scdoc file must begin with the following preamble:
 
 	*name*(_section_) ["left\_footer" ["center\_header"]]
 
-The *name* is the name of the man page you are writing, and _section_ is the
+*name* is the name of the man page you are writing, and _section_ is the
 section you're writing for (see *man*(1) for information on manual sections).
 
 _left\_footer_ and _center\_header_ are optional arguments which set the text