I can’t lie, if you spend most of your time in Windows, there’s probably diminished reasons to understand manpages, but for those that do any degree of meaningful work on a Linux or Unix (e.g. macOS) system, not knowing how to navigate man pages separates entire classes of developer professionalism to me.

It’s night and day working with people who know how to be approachable in development, but also realize you need to understand some basic flags for everyday tools and not turn to Google or Stack Overflow for what is directly in your manpages.

Admittedly those who cannot stay approachable concoct all sorts of shell hell for everyone, even those who are experienced.

Excellent question, by the way. I wish we’d get some more candid questions like these on HN when relevant to the thread, like this one. It’s a learning opportunity for all readers.