RTFM, and Other Acts of Love

RTFM is the oldest love-hate relationship in tech. We tell every newcomer to read the manual, in the same breath that we write manuals no human being could love. It is hazing dressed up as mentorship.

The honest truth is that half the time the manual is wrong, out of date, or lovingly describes a version that shipped during a different administration. “Read the docs” assumes the docs are telling the truth, and the docs, like all of us, have good days and bad ones.

Read the manual, yes — always start there. But the engineer who remembers when the manual is lying, and knows which paragraph to ignore, is worth ten who can only quote it. That knowledge is not in any manual. That is the whole joke.