From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Path: news.gmane.io!.POSTED.blaine.gmane.org!not-for-mail From: Eli Zaretskii Newsgroups: gmane.emacs.devel Subject: Re: Org mode and Emacs Date: Sun, 12 Jun 2022 09:21:18 +0300 Message-ID: <83o7yywgf5.fsf@gnu.org> References: <87h74ztshe.fsf@gmx.de> <871qw31ois.fsf@yahoo.com> <8735gj4ceo.fsf@gnu.org> <87ee038ipt.fsf@gmx.de> <87o7z61v59.fsf@gmail.com> <87bkv527p5.fsf@gmail.com> <835yld93w7.fsf@gnu.org> <877d5t0yrn.fsf@gmail.com> <87r140yuof.fsf@gmail.com> <875yl9e7zm.fsf@gmail.com> <87y1y2irhn.fsf@yahoo.com> <87wndmaaow.fsf@localhost> <87ilp6iohe.fsf@yahoo.com> Injection-Info: ciao.gmane.io; posting-host="blaine.gmane.org:116.202.254.214"; logging-data="24494"; mail-complaints-to="usenet@ciao.gmane.io" Cc: luangruo@yahoo.com, yantar92@gmail.com, rms@gnu.org, theophilusx@gmail.com, monnier@iro.umontreal.ca, acm@muc.de, emacs-devel@gnu.org To: chad Original-X-From: emacs-devel-bounces+ged-emacs-devel=m.gmane-mx.org@gnu.org Sun Jun 12 08:23:18 2022 Return-path: Envelope-to: ged-emacs-devel@m.gmane-mx.org Original-Received: from lists.gnu.org ([209.51.188.17]) by ciao.gmane.io with esmtps (TLS1.2:ECDHE_RSA_AES_256_GCM_SHA384:256) (Exim 4.92) (envelope-from ) id 1o0H0H-0006Cy-Jh for ged-emacs-devel@m.gmane-mx.org; Sun, 12 Jun 2022 08:23:17 +0200 Original-Received: from localhost ([::1]:40746 helo=lists1p.gnu.org) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.90_1) (envelope-from ) id 1o0H0G-0002bg-AL for ged-emacs-devel@m.gmane-mx.org; Sun, 12 Jun 2022 02:23:16 -0400 Original-Received: from eggs.gnu.org ([2001:470:142:3::10]:34184) by lists.gnu.org with esmtps (TLS1.2:ECDHE_RSA_AES_256_GCM_SHA384:256) (Exim 4.90_1) (envelope-from ) id 1o0Gyo-0001LK-R1 for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Sun, 12 Jun 2022 02:21:47 -0400 Original-Received: from fencepost.gnu.org ([2001:470:142:3::e]:41456) by eggs.gnu.org with esmtps (TLS1.2:ECDHE_RSA_AES_256_GCM_SHA384:256) (Exim 4.90_1) (envelope-from ) id 1o0Gyn-0001dn-7X; Sun, 12 Jun 2022 02:21:45 -0400 DKIM-Signature: v=1; a=rsa-sha256; q=dns/txt; c=relaxed/relaxed; d=gnu.org; s=fencepost-gnu-org; h=References:Subject:In-Reply-To:To:From:Date: mime-version; bh=6OQCZvg4HWoK1lWs6pyIsG0BnY7QUYjbeBIqNult5sY=; b=g7zZRjSZX8BK rv4UfkhBohSmARIj6RVHo74K7AOkuP8XAUqx3ifq7eJqYOw0kTu8osKsTkG2dJeiyhPU3PxbY6uo7 fpUO9nhS0NwbjedBpiW5R5wwHJhwzAbPYN5mkbUKw5mcYrplZS4E8rwJxjpjSJ72iZquEP4EYnfQc bVybKxkYCulfzQmSdKKQNwDoOpIiuru5Bq5lfEd0nMdhM4h5IvEoLABp97YnJ9RSMkFlIrYl/q4Lr 6dL4f2ar1s8CUIR4n97bVJa1pApn50QH2AM3FACXfCf6kdkPhAl+3Li+aPo5QwIoA6sZutAsr1ksW oainsiy22Rjn3mPSpWF4nQ==; Original-Received: from [87.69.77.57] (port=3283 helo=home-c4e4a596f7) by fencepost.gnu.org with esmtpsa (TLS1.2:ECDHE_RSA_AES_256_GCM_SHA384:256) (Exim 4.90_1) (envelope-from ) id 1o0Gyd-0002Nd-7b; Sun, 12 Jun 2022 02:21:36 -0400 In-Reply-To: (message from chad on Sat, 11 Jun 2022 23:54:39 -0400) X-BeenThere: emacs-devel@gnu.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.29 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-mx.org@gnu.org Original-Sender: "Emacs-devel" Xref: news.gmane.io gmane.emacs.devel:291072 Archived-At: > From: chad > Date: Sat, 11 Jun 2022 23:54:39 -0400 > Cc: Ihor Radchenko , Richard Stallman , > Tim Cross , > Stefan Monnier , Alan Mackenzie , > EMACS development team > > I don't see why we should be serious about using Org for our > documentation, when most people already know texinfo and are quite happy > with it. > > I think a reasonable examination of the emacs-devel archives as well as the common practices of most of > the people publishing emacs lisp packages today would lead to a very different conclusion. There are > several threads about maintenance concerns around makeinfo/texinfo, and many discussions about > replacing texinfo with, for example, HTML.There are periodic threads where people claim that they won't try > to add their project to GNU because the burden of learning and using texinfo is too high, although those have > died down in volume since it became more practical to translate other formats to texinfo. The real issue behind these claims is that developers seldom like writing good documentation. So learning to use a sophisticated markup system such as Texinfo is overkill for them. On top of that, if the package is not an Emacs package, there's a problem that Texinfo editing is not really well supported outside of Emacs, which is another reason for complaining by people who don't use Emacs for developing their package. Good HTML is no easier to write than good Texinfo, but the difference is that there are tools out there other than Emacs which can be used to create HTML, especially if the manual is relatively simple (as many Free Software manuals are). Bottom line: the complaints are real, but I'm not sure they help in this discussion, because there's no known alternative to Texinfo for creating good documentation of the kind that we are used to in Emacs. GCC folks are switching to Sphinx, but that has its own problems, and without good support for it in Emacs (and no, rst.el is not enough, as it doesn't provide enough markup commands, AFAICT) it isn't (yet) a viable alternative.