Examples for the tcpdump and dig man pages

Julia Evans just sprinkled beginner-friendly examples into the official manuals for two intimidating tools—tcpdump (a network traffic watcher) and dig (a website lookup helper)—and the internet lit up. Fans say it’s the rare upgrade that helps real people: “examples are gold,” cried one, framing it like giving flashcards to everyone who’s ever stared at a blank terminal. The updates are live in the dig man page and the refreshed tcpdump examples, and yes, they’re actually understandable.

Then came the scuffle: the TLDR crowd—who prefer quick cheat sheets—argued, “why not just add them to tldr?” Others clapped back that the official docs should be the first stop, not a scavenger hunt. Meanwhile, OG cred arrived as a surprise cameo: tcpdump’s co-author showed up with an origin-story talk, turning the thread into a mini history lesson. And when Evans casually mentioned she wrote a tiny script to avoid learning an ancient doc format, the AI chorus chimed in: “this is an ideal project for AI,” sparking jokes about bots writing manuals that humans can finally read.

The vibe? Hopeful chaos. People are giddy that dry manuals can be friendly, snarking that “docs so good you won’t need Stack Overflow,” and quietly admitting: maybe examples aren’t just training wheels—they’re the bike.