From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Path: news.gmane.org!not-for-mail From: Paul Eggert Newsgroups: gmane.emacs.devel Subject: Re: Have you all gone crazy? Was: On being web-friendly and why info must die Date: Mon, 22 Dec 2014 17:41:01 -0800 Organization: UCLA Computer Science Department Message-ID: <5498C82D.5080605@cs.ucla.edu> References: <87388bnzha.fsf@newcastle.ac.uk> <87k31mdbhe.fsf@uwakimon.sk.tsukuba.ac.jp> <87tx0qiv45.fsf@fencepost.gnu.org> <87h9wqd3i5.fsf@uwakimon.sk.tsukuba.ac.jp> <87fvc8kdsp.fsf@gnu.org> <6e11cd85-09a0-4b7a-baa2-0c810bdebbce@default> <871tnsg0w7.fsf@fencepost.gnu.org> <834msoqrsg.fsf@gnu.org> NNTP-Posting-Host: plane.gmane.org Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=utf-8; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable X-Trace: ger.gmane.org 1419298929 2802 80.91.229.3 (23 Dec 2014 01:42:09 GMT) X-Complaints-To: usenet@ger.gmane.org NNTP-Posting-Date: Tue, 23 Dec 2014 01:42:09 +0000 (UTC) Cc: Eli Zaretskii , Tom , Emacs-Devel devel To: Yuri Khan , Lennart Borgman Original-X-From: emacs-devel-bounces+ged-emacs-devel=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Tue Dec 23 02:42:01 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 1Y3EU5-0004Qz-47 for ged-emacs-devel@m.gmane.org; Tue, 23 Dec 2014 02:42:01 +0100 Original-Received: from localhost ([::1]:42777 helo=lists.gnu.org) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1Y3EU4-0007zp-8w for ged-emacs-devel@m.gmane.org; Mon, 22 Dec 2014 20:42:00 -0500 Original-Received: from eggs.gnu.org ([2001:4830:134:3::10]:57798) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1Y3ETl-0007wa-N4 for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Mon, 22 Dec 2014 20:41:49 -0500 Original-Received: from Debian-exim by eggs.gnu.org with spam-scanned (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1Y3ETe-0000zL-78 for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Mon, 22 Dec 2014 20:41:41 -0500 Original-Received: from smtp.cs.ucla.edu ([131.179.128.62]:35608) by eggs.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1Y3ETT-0000vl-4w; Mon, 22 Dec 2014 20:41:23 -0500 Original-Received: from localhost (localhost.localdomain [127.0.0.1]) by smtp.cs.ucla.edu (Postfix) with ESMTP id 8046DA60037; Mon, 22 Dec 2014 17:41:14 -0800 (PST) X-Virus-Scanned: amavisd-new at smtp.cs.ucla.edu Original-Received: from smtp.cs.ucla.edu ([127.0.0.1]) by localhost (smtp.cs.ucla.edu [127.0.0.1]) (amavisd-new, port 10024) with ESMTP id 9rOz6MSL19Ni; Mon, 22 Dec 2014 17:41:05 -0800 (PST) Original-Received: from [192.168.1.9] (pool-71-177-17-123.lsanca.dsl-w.verizon.net [71.177.17.123]) by smtp.cs.ucla.edu (Postfix) with ESMTPSA id A252539E8011; Mon, 22 Dec 2014 17:41:05 -0800 (PST) User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (X11; Linux x86_64; rv:31.0) Gecko/20100101 Thunderbird/31.3.0 In-Reply-To: X-detected-operating-system: by eggs.gnu.org: GNU/Linux 2.6.x X-Received-From: 131.179.128.62 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:180528 Archived-At: Yuri Khan wrote: > the HTML version =E2=80=9Cfeels like=E2=80=9D an electronic > version of a well-typeset printed book. The Info version feels like an > electronic version of a samizdat book typed on a typewriter. > *Readability counts.* This is a fair point. It's partly because the process we use to generate= an=20 Emacs distribution still uses Texinfo 4 to generate the info files. We s= hould=20 at least use Texinfo 5, so that the info files have proper quotes, which = would=20 be an improvement (although, unfortunately, it would not address your oth= er=20 points, where our info readers indeed have problems). > Improving the Emacs display engine might provide a > better reading experience. But the search scope issue requires an > all-encompassing Web search engine. I agree that better use of search engines would be a big improvement. Ot= hers=20 have argued in this thread that our manual indexes suffice, but I'm afrai= d my=20 experience is otherwise. Just today, for example, I needed to come up to speed on how composite gl= yphs=20 work in Emacs, a topic I knew little about; at first I didn't even rememb= er what=20 they were. I hardly ever use the Emacs manuals' indexes due to my=20 unsatisfactory past experiences with them, but since they're a current to= pic of=20 discussion in this thread I thought I'd try them again. I went to the Ema= cs=20 manual in info mode and typed 'i composite RET'; the response was "No=20 `composite' in index" (complete with those amateurish circa-1980=20 not-really-quotes -- "samizdat", I'll have to remember that description := -).=20 Since I'm supposedly expert I switched to the for-experts-only Elisp manu= al and=20 typed 'i composite RET', and got sent to an irrelevant page about composi= te=20 types. In short, the info-mode indexes were utterly a failure for this e= xample.=20 Which isn't surprising, since none of the Emacs manuals talk about comp= osite=20 glyphs anywhere. (I verified this by using other tools, as this was fast= er than=20 using info mode would have been.) In contrast, Google searches were reasonably helpful. The search '"compo= site=20 glyph"' quickly got me up to speed on the general topic, and '"composite = glyph"=20 Emacs' gave me helpful bug reports that let me intuit relevant issues rea= sonably=20 well. If one prefers a traditional manual, the use-Google approach can be *real= ly*=20 annoying, as it tends to throw up all sorts of trash, and I understand th= e=20 annoyance. Really, I do. But what can I say? It often works way better= , and=20 we should be exploiting this technology rather than limiting ourselves to= the=20 not-particularly-successful tactic of asking people to send us bug report= s and=20 fixes for our manuals.