From the beginning of computing there has been a problem with bootstrapping knowledge… the person creating a tool gives it a name, and describes it, but knowing that someone solved the problem you have and what the name of that tool was always a challenge.

But that is nothing new… you posted in English but if you were to learn a different language you would have a very similar problem, and one of the most universal strategies for making that transition is to drill on vocabulary. Once you have built a small vocabulary then you can expand it using a dictionary.

The real message behind someone saying RTFM is that there are so many educational and search resources now that asking some rando on the Internet to rewrite a Howto on the fly is lazy. Simply typing the exact same question into Google will bring up a kickstarter set of vocabulary and resources. If you actually do this your question will often answer itself, and if it doesn’t and you start by pointing out why your efforts failed to help you with your specific problem and use the vocabulary (at least briefly) that your research turned up to guide the reader toward where your problem is, you should get less RTFM responses.

You must be off by a decade. Your reference mentions no OS and Unic was developed around 1970.

How in the world did they manage that? Did they implement it internally as a TCP API and expose it?

For those not in the know… PDF is a particular set of conventions for delivering peograms written in a programming language called “Postscript”, and like all programs they can be hijacked to trigger unexpected results, including the delivery of software viruses. And yes, while those programs run in “sandboxes” that are supposed to prevent propagation of harm, such environments can fall in that purpose due to creative triggering of imperfections in the sandbox code by the “contained” Postscript code.

Hence, quotes are used to convey lack of trust in the claim of safety.

Boss has different people for different functions within the company. A monoculture is more susceptible to systematic flaws, but it is also less expensive to maintain. It is not OPs place to decide how the company manages is computing facilities, so if WSL or Cygwin are not accepable compromises (OP and company have to both agree) then OP has to decide whether they are willing to go along with Windows or find another job.

Something to talk about during the exit interview anyway.

seeing this will almost certainly top whatever stress she thought she had before.