Understanding "help" command description syntax - explanation needed

[Chris Angelico]

On Thu, Nov 6, 2014 at 2:56 AM, Larry Martell <larry.martell at gmail.com> wrote:
>> And I don't think
>> Larry was actually offended; it's just that some questions don't
>> really have easy answers - imagine someone asking a great
>> mathematician "But how do you KNOW that 2 + 2 is 4? Where's it written
>> down?"... all he can say is "It is".
>
> Yeah, I'm on a lot of lists and lately I've seen a lot of 'I'm not a
> programmer, but I want to write code and I need someone to tell me
> how." Gets to you after a while.

Too true. Those same people are unlikely to go to a gathering of civil
engineers and say "I'm no expert, but I want to build a bridge and I
need someone to tell me how", yet somehow it's expected to be possible
with software.

ChrisA