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: Sat, 6 Dec 2014 06:03:10 -0500 Organization: Eric Conspiracy Secret Labs Message-ID: <20141206110310.GE19750@thyrsus.com> References: <20141205123549.GA29331@thyrsus.com> <87mw72lyzs.fsf@earlgrey.lan> <20141205190925.GA5067@thyrsus.com> <20141206061019.GC14890@thyrsus.com> <83ppbx1aag.fsf@gnu.org> 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 1417863848 20218 80.91.229.3 (6 Dec 2014 11:04:08 GMT) X-Complaints-To: usenet@ger.gmane.org NNTP-Posting-Date: Sat, 6 Dec 2014 11:04:08 +0000 (UTC) Cc: cwebber@dustycloud.org, monnier@iro.umontreal.ca, emacs-devel@gnu.org To: Eli Zaretskii Original-X-From: emacs-devel-bounces+ged-emacs-devel=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Sat Dec 06 12:04:02 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 1XxD9c-0003BJ-21 for ged-emacs-devel@m.gmane.org; Sat, 06 Dec 2014 12:04:00 +0100 Original-Received: from localhost ([::1]:54042 helo=lists.gnu.org) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1XxD9b-0008Hd-HW for ged-emacs-devel@m.gmane.org; Sat, 06 Dec 2014 06:03:59 -0500 Original-Received: from eggs.gnu.org ([2001:4830:134:3::10]:45777) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1XxD9U-0008H1-To for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Sat, 06 Dec 2014 06:03:57 -0500 Original-Received: from Debian-exim by eggs.gnu.org with spam-scanned (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1XxD9Q-0000TZ-Lt for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Sat, 06 Dec 2014 06:03:52 -0500 Original-Received: from static-71-162-243-5.phlapa.fios.verizon.net ([71.162.243.5]:32903 helo=snark.thyrsus.com) by eggs.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1XxD9I-0000Qs-Kl; Sat, 06 Dec 2014 06:03:40 -0500 Original-Received: by snark.thyrsus.com (Postfix, from userid 1000) id 211F5383563; Sat, 6 Dec 2014 06:03:10 -0500 (EST) Content-Disposition: inline In-Reply-To: <83ppbx1aag.fsf@gnu.org> 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:179151 Archived-At: Eli Zaretskii : > > > Until there is a documentation viewer available in Elisp that is almost > > > as good as Info-mode while being prettier, > > > > Does a web browser not qualify? > > Not to me, not as progress from the current situation. > > > If not, why not? > > Because copy/pasting docs from a separate program while working on > something in Emacs is an annoyance Granted. But eww is part of the background conditions now. Emacs itself is a browser, and will become a better one. > And also because the index-searching commands, without which you are > lost in a large manual, don't exist in the Web browsers out there. This is not at *all* hard to solve. I have written HTML generators that produce index links myself in different contexts. > And finally because Emacs documentation commands have > links that go to the respective manual and chapter, but no similar > features exist for external browsers. Generating that kind of link structure from any modern markup is almost trivial. If you don't understand this it is unsurprising that you are opposed. But it is quite surprising that you don't understand. > In sum, switching to a Web browser as the means to read documentation > is a regression. Except to pretty much the entire universe of new developers we need to recruit. -- Eric S. Raymond