> A bad example is bash: NAME to INVOCATION take 210 lines, o.k.. > The whole man-page is 5869 lines.
Bash is a complex program, and the length of the manpage is entirely adequate. The manpage is a reference, not a tutorial. It does not serve the user to leave out essential information just from some misguided idea that there should be a length limit on manpages, with no regard for the complexity of the programs they describe. Also, important information comes first. In the case of a shell, that will be a description of the features the shell offers and how to use it; invoking the shell is not the most important item on the list of subjects users look to for reference on working with the shell. > A horror to search for some feature you need, > even if you vaguely remember to have it seen before. Quite the contrary. Less allows searching the page using regular expressions, which actually helps a lot. Many html browsers do not even give you that option. And the fact that it's a single manpage helps, too. The real horror are manpages like that for perl, which are split up into tiny units, so you don't even know where to start searching if you don't already know the name of the feature you're looking for.
