912: Manual Override

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Manual Override

Title text: I think you mean 'GNU Info Override'.

Explanation

This comic makes fun of a trend in documentation for UNIX-like systems, specifically those that use the open source GNU toolchain.

Historically, UNIX systems had a way to access descriptions of the available programs: the "man" (from "manual") command. Typing "man program-name" would output a detailed text, called a "man page", describing the program's functionality, available command-line options, a list of related programs, etc. For many GNU-based programs, however, the output of "man program-name" will be very brief, mainly directing the user to invoke a GNU-specific information system (GNU Info), thus rendering the man page useless and annoying for the user.

In this comic, it appears that the plane's pilot is attempting to read the man page for the Emergency Override System, in an effort to land the plane safely. However, the Emergency Override System's man page has hardly any useful information at all, costing the pilot precious seconds he could be using to save the lives of his passengers. Instead of simply getting the information from the man page, the pilot has to go to the GNU info page for the override system. By the time he types the command in, it'll probably be too late.

Transcript

[A plane is in a nosedive with smoke pouring from one wing. Text comes from someone reading in the cockpit.]

"This is the emergency override system, which can be used to regain control of the aircraft.

Complete instructions for activating this system are available as a GNU info page."

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Discussion

I think that the joke here is actually that the pilot is attempting a manual override (I.E. overriding the automatic pilot and switch to manual control) by typing in 'manual override'(which is also the title, in fact), and the parser instead opens the manual under the 'manual' command for the 'override' program (as explained in this page), not that the manual is too long to be read in that specific situation (while that is a valid argument). 93.144.215.90 12:36, 14 April 2013 (UTC)

Agreed. Wotpsycho (talk) 02:50, 17 May 2013 (UTC)

Yup. Sounds right. 183.87.213.90 04:32, 8 June 2013 (UTC)Manan