From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Path: news.gmane.org!not-for-mail From: Eli Zaretskii Newsgroups: gmane.emacs.devel Subject: Re: Have you all gone crazy? Was: On being web-friendly and why info must die Date: Tue, 23 Dec 2014 20:25:46 +0200 Message-ID: <83zjaenryt.fsf@gnu.org> 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> <5498C82D.5080605@cs.ucla.edu> <54991A97.1070605@cs.ucla.edu> Reply-To: Eli Zaretskii NNTP-Posting-Host: plane.gmane.org X-Trace: ger.gmane.org 1419359183 11501 80.91.229.3 (23 Dec 2014 18:26:23 GMT) X-Complaints-To: usenet@ger.gmane.org NNTP-Posting-Date: Tue, 23 Dec 2014 18:26:23 +0000 (UTC) Cc: emacs-devel@gnu.org, lennart.borgman@gmail.com, adatgyujto@gmail.com, drew.adams@oracle.com, yuri.v.khan@gmail.com To: Paul Eggert Original-X-From: emacs-devel-bounces+ged-emacs-devel=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Tue Dec 23 19:26:15 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 1Y3U9s-0002kh-Ha for ged-emacs-devel@m.gmane.org; Tue, 23 Dec 2014 19:26:12 +0100 Original-Received: from localhost ([::1]:45863 helo=lists.gnu.org) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1Y3U9r-0002E3-VX for ged-emacs-devel@m.gmane.org; Tue, 23 Dec 2014 13:26:11 -0500 Original-Received: from eggs.gnu.org ([2001:4830:134:3::10]:50789) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1Y3U9j-00020o-Ig for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Tue, 23 Dec 2014 13:26:08 -0500 Original-Received: from Debian-exim by eggs.gnu.org with spam-scanned (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1Y3U9e-0006yA-4M for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Tue, 23 Dec 2014 13:26:03 -0500 Original-Received: from mtaout21.012.net.il ([80.179.55.169]:33214) by eggs.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1Y3U9d-0006x2-TX for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Tue, 23 Dec 2014 13:25:58 -0500 Original-Received: from conversion-daemon.a-mtaout21.012.net.il by a-mtaout21.012.net.il (HyperSendmail v2007.08) id <0NH100000SH1XH00@a-mtaout21.012.net.il> for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Tue, 23 Dec 2014 20:25:56 +0200 (IST) Original-Received: from HOME-C4E4A596F7 ([87.69.4.28]) by a-mtaout21.012.net.il (HyperSendmail v2007.08) with ESMTPA id <0NH1000WZSJ8K380@a-mtaout21.012.net.il>; Tue, 23 Dec 2014 20:25:56 +0200 (IST) In-reply-to: <54991A97.1070605@cs.ucla.edu> X-012-Sender: halo1@inter.net.il X-detected-operating-system: by eggs.gnu.org: Solaris 10 X-Received-From: 80.179.55.169 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:180592 Archived-At: > Date: Mon, 22 Dec 2014 23:32:39 -0800 > From: Paul Eggert > CC: Eli Zaretskii , Tom , > Emacs-Devel devel > > Composite glyphs are admittedly a poorly-documented topic in the > Emacs manuals, so here's an example using a well-documented > topic. Let's say I want the time of day in Emacs. If I visit the > Elisp manual in info mode and type 'i time of day RET' Emacs > responds "No `timestamp of day' in index" (there's that ugly > 1980s-style quoting again!) and fails, even though there's a > perfectly good section called "Time of Day" in the Elisp manual -- > what's up with that It is generally advisable to have in each node an index entry which matches that node's name or the name of its section. There are 880 nodes in the ELisp manual, out of which 116, including "Time of Day", didn't follow that rule (they do now) -- not bad for "samizdat"! > and why did Emacs insist on changing "time" to "timestamp" and then > getting lost? That's our smart completion at work for you, nothing related to Info in particular. Feel free to file a bug report. Anyway, when index search fails for the phrase you type (and you should try more than one, like 2 or 3 before you give up), what I normally do is back up a little and use a shorter phrase. In this case, I'd type "i time TAB", and that probably would have been enough in this case to show you what you are after, among a short enough list of candidates. Failing that (which would already warrant a bug report), ... > In contrast, the Google search 'Emacs "time of day"' yields a first > hit that's precisely what's needed. ...I'd use the Info equivalent of that, "s time of day RET", which would have instantaneously found you what you were after. Info also knows how to search for a string (or regexp). > This was the very first example I tried while writing this email -- > it's not a contrived example. I hope it helps to explain why search > engines are far more popular for this sort of thing. It's not merely > that users know search engines better than they know Emacs info > mode. It's that the search engines are typically better for most > users. I see no evidence here of Google being better for this particular task. You just gave up too soon, that's all. Granted, Info does not pretend to be a sophisticated search engine anywhere near Google. But for the job it needs to do it is quite adequate, and this example shows that clearly, even though it exposed a (temporary) weakness in our indexing. And of course, I agree with Drew: no one said you should use either Google or Info; that is a red herring.