On August 30, 2002 08:16 pm, Phil Tomson wrote:
> So I'll try one more time: Can you give us a _specific_ example where you
> found that you needed more information or the information wasn't clear?
> For example, you could say: "The explanation of the foo method in the
> module Fooable didn't tell me anything about how instance variables of the
> class it is being mixed into will be affected".

A suggestion for the 'ri' program...

A list of related items at the end of a description (like man pages). For 
example, 'ri String#downcase' would display something like:

-------------------------------------------------------- String#downcase
     str.downcase -> aString
------------------------------------------------------------------------
     Returns a copy of str with all uppercase letters replaced with
     their lowercase counterparts. The operation is locale
     insensitive---only characters ``A'' to ``Z'' are affected.
        "hEllO".downcase   #=> "hello"

------------------------------------------------------------------------
     See Also: String#downcase!, String#upcase, String#upcase!
------------------------------------------------------------------------

IMHO that extra bit of information helps a lot in some cases. Sometimes i find 
a method that does something close to what i want, so i go looking for 
similar ones. Other times i know of a method that does the opposite of what i 
want to do.


A --help switch would be nice too. I'm used to typing that for all my apps and 
it took me a while to figure out ri with no arguments displays its help, 
hehe.

-- 
To call me "awesome" is an understatement.