bug#50447: [PATCH] Remove very old NEWS from the FAQ

bug#50447: [PATCH] Remove very old NEWS from the FAQ

[Stefan Kangas]

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Severity: wishlist

The section in the Emacs FAQ about NEWS in various Emacs versions
going back to version 20 is interesting as a historical exercise, but
probably not relevant in an FAQ.

I suggest we remove anything older than Emacs 24 at this point.  See
the attached patch.

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From 444076703ac9a6b3e04d576bd26a3ff7a0965005 Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001
From: Stefan Kangas <stefan@marxist.se>
Date: Tue, 7 Sep 2021 03:29:18 +0200
Subject: [PATCH] Remove very old NEWS from the FAQ

* doc/misc/efaq.texi (New in Emacs 23, New in Emacs 22)
(New in Emacs 21, New in Emacs 20): Delete sections.
(Status of Emacs): Update menu.
---
 doc/misc/efaq.texi | 196 +--------------------------------------------
 1 file changed, 1 insertion(+), 195 deletions(-)

diff --git a/doc/misc/efaq.texi b/doc/misc/efaq.texi
index 1514dbe265..8aa95228dd 100644
--- a/doc/misc/efaq.texi
+++ b/doc/misc/efaq.texi
@@ -900,14 +900,11 @@ Status of Emacs
 @menu
 * Origin of the term Emacs::
 * Latest version of Emacs::
+@c Remove anything below that is older than four major releases or so.
 * New in Emacs 27::
 * New in Emacs 26::
 * New in Emacs 25::
 * New in Emacs 24::
-* New in Emacs 23::
-* New in Emacs 22::
-* New in Emacs 21::
-* New in Emacs 20::
 @end menu
 
 @node Origin of the term Emacs
@@ -1280,197 +1277,6 @@ New in Emacs 24
 As always, consult the @file{NEWS} file for more information.
 
 
-@node New in Emacs 23
-@section What is different about Emacs 23?
-@cindex Differences between Emacs 22 and Emacs 23
-@cindex Emacs 23, new features in
-
-@itemize
-
-@cindex Anti-aliased fonts
-@cindex Freetype fonts
-@item
-Emacs has a new font code that can use multiple font backends,
-including freetype and fontconfig.  Emacs can use the Xft library for
-anti-aliasing, and the otf and m17n libraries for complex text layout and
-text shaping.
-
-@cindex Unicode
-@cindex Character sets
-@item
-The Emacs character set is now a superset of Unicode.  Several new
-language environments have been added.
-
-@cindex Multi-tty support
-@cindex X and tty displays
-@item
-Emacs now supports using both X displays and ttys in the same session
-(@samp{multi-tty}).
-
-@cindex Daemon mode
-@item
-Emacs can be started as a daemon in the background.
-
-@cindex NeXTstep port
-@cindex GNUstep port
-@cindex macOS Cocoa
-@item
-There is a new NeXTstep port of Emacs.  This supports GNUstep and Mac OS
-X (via the Cocoa libraries).  The Carbon port of Emacs, which supported
-Mac OS X in Emacs 22, has been removed.
-
-@cindex Directory-local variables
-@item
-Directory-local variables can now be defined, in a similar manner to
-file-local variables.
-
-@item
-Transient Mark mode is on by default.
-
-@end itemize
-
-@noindent
-Other changes include: support for serial port access; D-Bus bindings; a
-new Visual Line mode for line-motion; improved completion; a new mode
-(@samp{DocView}) for viewing of PDF, PostScript, and DVI documents; nXML
-mode (for editing XML documents) is included; VC has been updated for
-newer version control systems; etc.
-
-
-@node New in Emacs 22
-@section What is different about Emacs 22?
-@cindex Differences between Emacs 21 and Emacs 22
-@cindex Emacs 22, new features in
-
-@itemize
-@cindex GTK+ Toolkit
-@cindex Drag-and-drop
-@item
-Emacs can be built with GTK+ widgets, and supports drag-and-drop
-operation on X.
-
-@cindex Supported systems
-@item
-Emacs 22 features support for GNU/Linux systems on S390 and x86-64
-machines, as well as support for the Mac OS X and Cygwin operating
-systems.
-
-@item
-The native MS-Windows, and Mac OS X builds include full support
-for images, toolbar, and tooltips.
-
-@item
-Font Lock mode, Auto Compression mode, and File Name Shadow Mode are
-enabled by default.
-
-@item
-The maximum size of buffers is increased: on 32-bit machines, it is
-256 MBytes for Emacs 23.1, and 512 MBytes for Emacs 23.2 and above.
-
-@item
-Links can be followed with @kbd{mouse-1}, in addition to @kbd{mouse-2}.
-
-@cindex Mouse wheel
-@item
-Mouse wheel support is enabled by default.
-
-@item
-Window fringes are customizable.
-
-@item
-The mode line of the selected window is now highlighted.
-
-@item
-The minibuffer prompt is displayed in a distinct face.
-
-@item
-Abbrev definitions are read automatically at startup.
-
-@item
-Grep mode is separate from Compilation mode and has many new options and
-commands specific to grep.
-
-@item
-The original Emacs macro system has been replaced by the new Kmacro
-package, which provides many new commands and features and a simple
-interface that uses the function keys F3 and F4.  Macros are stored in a
-macro ring, and can be debugged and edited interactively.
-
-@item
-The Grand Unified Debugger (GUD) can be used with a full graphical user
-interface to GDB; this provides many features found in traditional
-development environments, making it easy to manipulate breakpoints, add
-watch points, display the call stack, etc.  Breakpoints are visually
-indicated in the source buffer.
-
-@item
-@cindex New modes
-Many new modes and packages have been included in Emacs, such as Calc,
-TRAMP, URL, IDO, CUA, ERC, rcirc, Table, Image-Dired, SES, Ruler, Org,
-PGG, Flymake, Password, Printing, Reveal, wdired, t-mouse, longlines,
-savehist, Conf mode, Python mode, DNS mode, etc.
-
-@cindex Multilingual Environment
-@item
-Leim is now part of Emacs.  Unicode support has been much improved, and
-the following input methods have been added: belarusian, bulgarian-bds,
-bulgarian-phonetic, chinese-sisheng, croatian, dutch, georgian,
-latin-alt-postfix, latin-postfix, latin-prefix, latvian-keyboard,
-lithuanian-numeric, lithuanian-keyboard, malayalam-inscript, rfc1345,
-russian-computer, sgml, slovenian, tamil-inscript, ucs,
-ukrainian-computer, vietnamese-telex, and welsh.
-
-The following language environments have also been added: Belarusian,
-Bulgarian, Chinese-EUC-TW, Croatian, French, Georgian, Italian, Latin-6,
-Latin-7, Latvian, Lithuanian, Malayalam, Russian, Slovenian, Swedish,
-Tajik, Tamil, UTF-8, Ukrainian, Welsh, and Windows-1255.
-
-@cindex Documentation
-@cindex Emacs Lisp Manual
-@item
-In addition, Emacs 22 now includes the Emacs Lisp Reference Manual
-(@pxref{Emacs Lisp documentation}) and the Emacs Lisp Intro.
-@end itemize
-
-
-@node New in Emacs 21
-@section What is different about Emacs 21?
-@cindex Differences between Emacs 20 and Emacs 21
-@cindex Emacs 21, new features in
-
-@cindex Variable-size fonts
-@cindex Toolbar support
-Emacs 21 features a thorough rewrite of the display engine.  The new
-display engine supports variable-size fonts, images, and can play sounds
-on platforms which support that.  As a result, the visual appearance of
-Emacs, when it runs on a windowed display, is much more reminiscent of
-modern GUI programs, and includes 3D widgets (used for the mode line and
-the scroll bars), a configurable and extensible toolbar, tooltips
-(a.k.a.@: balloon help), and other niceties.
-
-@cindex Colors on text-only terminals
-@cindex TTY colors
-In addition, Emacs 21 supports faces on text-only terminals.  This means
-that you can now have colors when you run Emacs on a GNU/Linux console
-and on @code{xterm} with @kbd{emacs -nw}.
-
-
-@node New in Emacs 20
-@section What is different about Emacs 20?
-@cindex Differences between Emacs 19 and Emacs 20
-@cindex Emacs 20, new features in
-
-The differences between Emacs versions 18 and 19 were rather dramatic;
-the introduction of frames, faces, and colors on windowing systems was
-obvious to even the most casual user.
-
-There are differences between Emacs versions 19 and 20 as well, but many
-are more subtle or harder to find.  Among the changes are the inclusion
-of MULE code for languages that use non-Latin characters and for mixing
-several languages in the same document; the ``Customize'' facility for
-modifying variables without having to use Lisp; and automatic conversion
-of files from Macintosh, Microsoft, and Unix platforms.
-
 @c ------------------------------------------------------------
 @node Common requests
 @chapter Common requests
-- 
2.30.2

bug#50447: [PATCH] Remove very old NEWS from the FAQ

[Eli Zaretskii]

> From: Stefan Kangas <stefan@marxist.se>
> Date: Tue, 7 Sep 2021 03:31:39 +0200
> 
> The section in the Emacs FAQ about NEWS in various Emacs versions
> going back to version 20 is interesting as a historical exercise, but
> probably not relevant in an FAQ.
> 
> I suggest we remove anything older than Emacs 24 at this point.  See
> the attached patch.

Rationale?  Without that, the only way of finding when some important
feature was added is by tediously searching NEWS.

I say let's leave those 200 lines alone, they don't cause any trouble
to anyone.

bug#50447: [PATCH] Remove very old NEWS from the FAQ

[Stefan Kangas]

Eli Zaretskii <eliz@gnu.org> writes:

> Rationale?
>
> Without that, the only way of finding when some important
> feature was added is by tediously searching NEWS.

The intended audience of the FAQ is end-users, not core developers
going spelunking.  It is not useful information for that audience.

Nothing is lost, you can just look at an old version of the FAQ.  But
if you really need to look at these summaries often, we could perhaps
move them to a separate file in admin/notes or something.  Are they
really that important?

bug#50447: [PATCH] Remove very old NEWS from the FAQ

[Eli Zaretskii]

> From: Stefan Kangas <stefan@marxist.se>
> Date: Tue, 7 Sep 2021 08:42:42 +0200
> Cc: 50447@debbugs.gnu.org
> 
> The intended audience of the FAQ is end-users, not core developers
> going spelunking.  It is not useful information for that audience.

Developers are also users.

> Nothing is lost, you can just look at an old version of the FAQ.  But
> if you really need to look at these summaries often, we could perhaps
> move them to a separate file in admin/notes or something.  Are they
> really that important?

We never deleted from the FAQ anything, except stuff that is no longer
correct, did we?  Why start now?

Again, what's the rationale?

bug#50447: [PATCH] Remove very old NEWS from the FAQ

[Phil Sainty]

On 2021-09-07 18:42, Stefan Kangas wrote:
> The intended audience of the FAQ is end-users, not core developers
> going spelunking.  It is not useful information for that audience.

I think they're (a) interesting, and (b) not causing any problems.

Reading the NEWS for a major release takes quite a long time, so
I think it's nice that there's also a small "selected highlights"
for historical releases.  As a user, I think it's interesting to
learn when Emacs acquired certain features.

Moreover, the node which gets you to them is tiny -- this small
list of links surely isn't taking up any undesirable space, and
no one who isn't interested in the history is going to be following
those links; so to me they seem entirely harmless (for all users),
and useful (for some users).  On that basis, I wouldn't remove them.


-Phil

bug#50447: [External] : bug#50447: [PATCH] Remove very old NEWS from the FAQ

[Drew Adams]

> > Without that, the only way of finding when some important
> > feature was added is by tediously searching NEWS.
> 
> The intended audience of the FAQ is end-users, not core developers
> going spelunking.  It is not useful information for that audience.

Emacs users can spelunk also.  A narrow idea of
users (in this case Emacs users) is the bane of
free software.

Even siphoning off some idea of "end-users" is
limiting.  Anyone using Emacs in any way is an
"end-user", so term has no useful meaning.  An
Emacs "end-user" can be an expert user and
developer, and can be an active contributor to
Emacs development.  Or not.

bug#50447: [External] : bug#50447: [PATCH] Remove very old NEWS from the FAQ

[Drew Adams]

> I say let's leave those 200 lines alone, they don't cause any trouble
> to anyone.

+1

bug#50447: [PATCH] Remove very old NEWS from the FAQ

[Lars Ingebrigtsen]

Stefan Kangas <stefan@marxist.se> writes:

> The section in the Emacs FAQ about NEWS in various Emacs versions
> going back to version 20 is interesting as a historical exercise, but
> probably not relevant in an FAQ.
>
> I suggest we remove anything older than Emacs 24 at this point.  See
> the attached patch.

I think the old sections are perhaps pretty interesting to users, so I'd
rather leave them where they are.

-- 
(domestic pets only, the antidote for overdose, milk.)
   bloggy blog: http://lars.ingebrigtsen.no

bug#50447: [PATCH] Remove very old NEWS from the FAQ

[Stefan Kangas]

tags 50447 notabug
close 50447
thanks


Lars Ingebrigtsen <larsi@gnus.org> writes:

> I think the old sections are perhaps pretty interesting to users, so I'd
> rather leave them where they are.

OK, the people have spoken.  Let's close this.