More Questions (Pt. 72141248!)

[Michael Hart]

Hi all in net-land!!!

	Unless I've used up my question quotient for the month,
I have still more general questions.  PLEASE feel free to answer
any or all.  (Sorry, no flames accepted for dumb questions!)

Also, please don't give RTFM as a general answer.  In most cases, I
have.  Maybe my FM's are different from everyone else's: they don't
tell WHEN to use or do something, only the specifics of _how_ to
do it when you already know you need to!

Trust me, I spend plenty of time with both paper and screen manuals!!

I should also mention my general hw/sw setup(s).  These are the 
specific machines and operating systems I'm interested in using.

________MACHINE_______		________OPERATING SYSTEM_____
SGI 4D/25 Personal IRIS		IRIX (svr3(?) with BSD stuff)
Mac IIcx,ci,fx,etc		A/UX (bsd??)
386 or 486 based		ESIX? Seems cheap enough for home!

I have the SGI and Mac IIcx;  would like to get the 386/486 and
Esix for home (when the $$$ are there).

Now, on with the show....

=======================================
Question 1
=======================================
	What's a good, portable, nice looking way to do screen 
		interfacing: i.e. the look of your program?  Like,
		if I wanted to do the old menu style:

		(clear screen)
		1) choice a
		2) choice b
		3) choice c
		4) choice d
		5) choice e
	Enter your choice: ===>

	Would you/I use curses? Just blast lines out to stdout?
	How about windowing packages/libraries?  I realize they
	can be platform/OS specific; any general purpose packages?

And of course this leads into:

	Where does one get info on using this stuff?
	

======================
AND NOW FOR SOMETHING COMPLETELY DIFFERENT
Question 2
======================

	Can someone explain or point me to a good
description of the various progs such as nroff, troff, ditroff,
***roff ad infinitum?  I have a general idea of what they do, but,
why one over the other?  How do I get man pages to print nicely -
bolded, underlined, etc?  How do I get man pages to install well?
How do I write my own man pages so they look like all the others?

======================
AND NOW FOR SOMETHING ELSE COMPLETELY DIFFERENT
Question 3
======================

	I have too many things I want to learn, and not enough time
to learn them.  Below are the things I'm interested in gaining
some knowledge about; at least enough to talk somewhat
sensibly about it, and hopefully enough to work smartly!
	1. C programming
		I tinker now; just took an LTI course, and am
		trying hard to do some writing everyday.  I have
		2 or 3 small projects that can keep be busy.
	2. Bourne shell programming
		I've discovered that this is always handy for 
		anyone who spends more than 4 minutes a day at
		the controls of a *nix box.
	3. Perl programming
		Not positive, but seems to fall somewhere between
		numbers 1 & 2 above.
	4. System admin tricks.  The last time I "improved" my
		system into junk was several weeks ago.  Usually,
		I can avoid destroying anything.  I'd like to learn
		more about system security, lp admin, so on.
		In general, how do I be a good or better sysadmin??
		(Let's say, good enough to freelance/consult??)
	5. Using *roff, as above in question 2.
	6. Would like to learn more about networking.  I have a pretty
		good foundation on serial comm, ethernet, X25, T1.
		Would like to be able to write a 'network' program
		ie. something that would run on 2 or more systems, and
		talk to each other.
	7. Would like to learn more about mail systems.  (Is there
		really anyone who understands sendmail.cf??)
	8. Need to learn about domains and naming services.
	9. Want to learn more about netnews.  I have nn6.4.9, 
		running as an NNTP client.  I want to learn enough
		about the physical aspects of news that if I ever
		go somewhere else, I'd be able to set up a system, 
		find a news feed, etc.  (The thought of being without
		news terrifies me; how did I ever live without it??)

OK.  Now that I've listed enough to keep 8 people busy throughout 
most of their adult lives....  Please give recommendations, suggestions,
etc about my list.  Should some things be given only cursory exam,
like the *roff stuff?  Should some things wait until other things 
are more thoroughly learned?  Should I blow it all off, and be a
beach bum?  A street bum?


 
Any comments/suggestions?

Okay, I guess you can get back to real work now!!!

thanx, as always!~!!!!!!


--
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Michael G. Hart   hart at blackjack.dt.navy.mil /  mhart at dtrc.dt.navy.mil
DTRC/DoD			  |  "Wherever you go, there you are."- me
DISCLAIMER: If you want the Navy's opinion, talk to Secretary Cheney.