From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Path: news.gmane.org!not-for-mail From: "Eric S. Raymond" Newsgroups: gmane.emacs.devel Subject: Re: On being web-friendly and why info must die Date: Fri, 5 Dec 2014 14:36:43 -0500 Organization: Eric Conspiracy Secret Labs Message-ID: <20141205193643.GB5067@thyrsus.com> References: <20141205123549.GA29331@thyrsus.com> <2815659.zRQ0WWWeRr@descartes> <20141205175810.GD3120@thyrsus.com> <87lhmlncb1.fsf@earlgrey.lan> Reply-To: esr@thyrsus.com NNTP-Posting-Host: plane.gmane.org Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii X-Trace: ger.gmane.org 1417808251 24946 80.91.229.3 (5 Dec 2014 19:37:31 GMT) X-Complaints-To: usenet@ger.gmane.org NNTP-Posting-Date: Fri, 5 Dec 2014 19:37:31 +0000 (UTC) Cc: =?iso-8859-1?Q?R=FCdiger?= Sonderfeld , emacs-devel@gnu.org To: Christopher Allan Webber Original-X-From: emacs-devel-bounces+ged-emacs-devel=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Fri Dec 05 20:37:25 2014 Return-path: Envelope-to: ged-emacs-devel@m.gmane.org Original-Received: from lists.gnu.org ([208.118.235.17]) by plane.gmane.org with esmtp (Exim 4.69) (envelope-from ) id 1Xwygv-0003NI-CE for ged-emacs-devel@m.gmane.org; Fri, 05 Dec 2014 20:37:25 +0100 Original-Received: from localhost ([::1]:52240 helo=lists.gnu.org) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1Xwygv-0000qh-01 for ged-emacs-devel@m.gmane.org; Fri, 05 Dec 2014 14:37:25 -0500 Original-Received: from eggs.gnu.org ([2001:4830:134:3::10]:48610) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1Xwygo-0000qZ-6U for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Fri, 05 Dec 2014 14:37:22 -0500 Original-Received: from Debian-exim by eggs.gnu.org with spam-scanned (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1Xwygk-0003i3-0Y for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Fri, 05 Dec 2014 14:37:18 -0500 Original-Received: from static-71-162-243-5.phlapa.fios.verizon.net ([71.162.243.5]:57399 helo=snark.thyrsus.com) by eggs.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1Xwygj-0003hz-Su for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Fri, 05 Dec 2014 14:37:13 -0500 Original-Received: by snark.thyrsus.com (Postfix, from userid 1000) id 87CB13834FA; Fri, 5 Dec 2014 14:36:43 -0500 (EST) Content-Disposition: inline In-Reply-To: <87lhmlncb1.fsf@earlgrey.lan> X-Eric-Conspiracy: There is no conspiracy User-Agent: Mutt/1.5.21 (2010-09-15) X-detected-operating-system: by eggs.gnu.org: GNU/Linux 2.2.x-3.x [generic] X-Received-From: 71.162.243.5 X-BeenThere: emacs-devel@gnu.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.14 Precedence: list List-Id: "Emacs development discussions." List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , Errors-To: emacs-devel-bounces+ged-emacs-devel=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Original-Sender: emacs-devel-bounces+ged-emacs-devel=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Xref: news.gmane.org gmane.emacs.devel:178998 Archived-At: Christopher Allan Webber : > I think changing things for emacs to make it more modern is good... when > it came to changing to a new DVCS, I agree with the move to git Git; in > terms of usage, this is the clear winner. But who is using asciidoc > these days? The Linux kernel, for one. All their internal documentation and their webbed documentation is mastered in asciidoc. Also true of the git project. > But a lot of this is cosmetic. We could improve Texinfo to look much > better probably (and that would positively affect a lot of existing GNU > projects). But it would still be Texinfo, still be an essentially pointless barrier to learning how to contribute. Stefan has recently observed that the distinction between info node and document section structure is almost always pointless duplication, and he's right. This is one of many reasons Texinfo needs to be razed to the ground. > But I really do not understand the choice of asciidoc. Could you > explain further your reasoning? I think (and I believe RMS agrees) that we need a master format that will (a) play nice with Web, and (b) attract new contributors rather than repelling them. The latter criterion argues strongly for a modern, leightweignt markup in general use outside the Emacs project. org mode may be functionally capable enough - I don't know yet - but I think it's the wrong kind of positioning; it says "We're Emacs, we're going to stick to our weird ingrown rituals and not-invented-here hostility, go away". What are the alternatives, really? asciidoc. rST. Sphinx. Some flavor of markdown. I think markdown is right out because of the death-of-a-thousand dialects problem it has. Yes, there's an attempt to solve that happening now. But even supposing it succeeds, markdown isn't really designed for the kind of complex structured documents we have in Texinfo. rST, Sphinx and asciidoc don't have that problem. Among those, I think asciidoc wins because it's achieved more desigh wins in high-profile projects. -- Eric S. Raymond