From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Path: news.gmane.org!not-for-mail From: Andy Moreton Newsgroups: gmane.emacs.devel Subject: Re: Have you all gone crazy? Was: On being web-friendly and why info must die Date: Wed, 24 Dec 2014 10:09:50 +0000 Message-ID: <868uhxcqa9.fsf@gmail.com> 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> <83zjaenryt.fsf@gnu.org> <5499D9D7.3010405@cs.ucla.edu> NNTP-Posting-Host: plane.gmane.org Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain X-Trace: ger.gmane.org 1419415855 2062 80.91.229.3 (24 Dec 2014 10:10:55 GMT) X-Complaints-To: usenet@ger.gmane.org NNTP-Posting-Date: Wed, 24 Dec 2014 10:10:55 +0000 (UTC) To: emacs-devel@gnu.org Original-X-From: emacs-devel-bounces+ged-emacs-devel=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Wed Dec 24 11:10:48 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 1Y3ity-00030S-MY for ged-emacs-devel@m.gmane.org; Wed, 24 Dec 2014 11:10:46 +0100 Original-Received: from localhost ([::1]:47622 helo=lists.gnu.org) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1Y3itx-00067n-IZ for ged-emacs-devel@m.gmane.org; Wed, 24 Dec 2014 05:10:45 -0500 Original-Received: from eggs.gnu.org ([2001:4830:134:3::10]:49554) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1Y3itd-00067i-CI for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Wed, 24 Dec 2014 05:10:26 -0500 Original-Received: from Debian-exim by eggs.gnu.org with spam-scanned (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1Y3ita-0002SI-4Q for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Wed, 24 Dec 2014 05:10:25 -0500 Original-Received: from plane.gmane.org ([80.91.229.3]:37857) by eggs.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1Y3itZ-0002S8-UQ for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Wed, 24 Dec 2014 05:10:22 -0500 Original-Received: from list by plane.gmane.org with local (Exim 4.69) (envelope-from ) id 1Y3itY-0002sn-5s for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Wed, 24 Dec 2014 11:10:20 +0100 Original-Received: from 82-69-64-228.dsl.in-addr.zen.co.uk ([82.69.64.228]) by main.gmane.org with esmtp (Gmexim 0.1 (Debian)) id 1AlnuQ-0007hv-00 for ; Wed, 24 Dec 2014 11:10:20 +0100 Original-Received: from andrewjmoreton by 82-69-64-228.dsl.in-addr.zen.co.uk with local (Gmexim 0.1 (Debian)) id 1AlnuQ-0007hv-00 for ; Wed, 24 Dec 2014 11:10:20 +0100 X-Injected-Via-Gmane: http://gmane.org/ Original-Lines: 46 Original-X-Complaints-To: usenet@ger.gmane.org X-Gmane-NNTP-Posting-Host: 82-69-64-228.dsl.in-addr.zen.co.uk User-Agent: Gnus/5.13 (Gnus v5.13) Emacs/25.0.50 (windows-nt) Cancel-Lock: sha1:m+88I769lA6sAGfronxl4E+uKUw= X-detected-operating-system: by eggs.gnu.org: Genre and OS details not recognized. X-Received-From: 80.91.229.3 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:180634 Archived-At: On Tue 23 Dec 2014, Paul Eggert wrote: > Eli Zaretskii wrote: > >> You just gave up too soon, that's all. > > No I didn't. I switched from the info index (which didn't work for me first > time) to a search engine (which did). Why should I insist on slowing myself > down with inferior technology? Your sample size is too small to have any statistical significance. I have usually found search engines to be vastly inferior to a manual with a good index, but both mechanisms are useful and both are needed. > Of course this was just one example, but it's representative. It's long been > my experience that search engines work better than traditional indexes for > most of my questions about Emacs functionality. And I don't think my > experience is at all atypical. Feel free to tweak the manually-maintained > index, but in the end I expect the tweaks won't benefit most users. The popular search engines are close to useless for focussed searches these days, as they are far more interested in delivering advertising than in producing useful results. Using a search engine usually results in several pages of irrelevant links, each of which must be followed in the forlorn hope that any of them contain anything pertinent and up to date. Everyone seems to agree that texinfo could do with some performance improvements. While the info format could happily be jettisoned in favour of something else, the discussion in this thread seems mostly about bikeshedding something new and incompatible with any existing tooling. The markup used for documentation is not an impediment to writing documentation - on this ESR is flat out wrong. Eli's offer to add texinfo markup to documentation written by those without knowledge of info will result in no extra work, as that offer will not be taken up by anyone. The use of Texinfo or any other markup format is irrelevant to the production of high quality documentation. The creation of the initial plain text prose is the heart of the problem. Markup and editorial fixes can be added to existing text, but changing the markup does not magically produce a working text from thin air. AndyM