From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Path: news.gmane.org!not-for-mail From: David Kastrup Newsgroups: gmane.emacs.devel Subject: Re: On being web-friendly and why info must die Date: Thu, 11 Dec 2014 17:36:51 +0100 Message-ID: <87a92uf8ik.fsf@fencepost.gnu.org> References: <20141205123549.GA29331@thyrsus.com> <87ppbqb6s1.fsf@gnu.org> <87h9x2f9me.fsf@fencepost.gnu.org> NNTP-Posting-Host: plane.gmane.org Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain X-Trace: ger.gmane.org 1418316502 23887 80.91.229.3 (11 Dec 2014 16:48:22 GMT) X-Complaints-To: usenet@ger.gmane.org NNTP-Posting-Date: Thu, 11 Dec 2014 16:48:22 +0000 (UTC) Cc: Emacs-Devel devel To: Lennart Borgman Original-X-From: emacs-devel-bounces+ged-emacs-devel=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Thu Dec 11 17:48:14 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 1Xz6uT-0000C2-QN for ged-emacs-devel@m.gmane.org; Thu, 11 Dec 2014 17:48:13 +0100 Original-Received: from localhost ([::1]:52436 helo=lists.gnu.org) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1Xz6uT-0003DL-Fd for ged-emacs-devel@m.gmane.org; Thu, 11 Dec 2014 11:48:13 -0500 Original-Received: from eggs.gnu.org ([2001:4830:134:3::10]:41176) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1Xz6jY-00071Q-3T for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Thu, 11 Dec 2014 11:37:00 -0500 Original-Received: from Debian-exim by eggs.gnu.org with spam-scanned (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1Xz6jW-00087I-TO for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Thu, 11 Dec 2014 11:36:56 -0500 Original-Received: from fencepost.gnu.org ([2001:4830:134:3::e]:46722) by eggs.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1Xz6jW-00087E-Pk for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Thu, 11 Dec 2014 11:36:54 -0500 Original-Received: from localhost ([127.0.0.1]:53897 helo=lola) by fencepost.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1Xz6jT-0006Pu-T9; Thu, 11 Dec 2014 11:36:53 -0500 Original-Received: by lola (Postfix, from userid 1000) id 60C30E664E; Thu, 11 Dec 2014 17:36:51 +0100 (CET) In-Reply-To: (Lennart Borgman's message of "Thu, 11 Dec 2014 17:20:52 +0100") User-Agent: Gnus/5.13 (Gnus v5.13) Emacs/25.0.50 (gnu/linux) X-detected-operating-system: by eggs.gnu.org: Error: Malformed IPv6 address (bad octet value). X-Received-From: 2001:4830:134:3::e 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:179792 Archived-At: Lennart Borgman writes: > On Thu, Dec 11, 2014 at 5:12 PM, David Kastrup wrote: >> Lennart Borgman writes: >> >>>> Info browsers make it easy to browse manuals, search for index terms, >>>> follow links, including to other manuals. A Web browser cannot achieve >>>> that because a Web browser is not designed for that. >>> >>> >>> Not by itself, but with a good search engine it could. >> >> Not really. Try an incremental full text search through the entire Info >> file. Try jumping through the references for some index term. >> >> The best search engine does not give you a user interface for that kind >> of stuff. > > You have to work a bit differently, but that does not mean it is not > just as useful. Shrug. The HTML version of the LilyPond manual has a search box leading to a search engine. Results and usage are so far inferior to using Emacs' info reader that it isn't funny. > My point is maybe a bit unclear. It matters a lot what search engine > you have and how you feed it with information. In the small project I > linked to I have had rather minimal success with Google CSE. So I > switched to OpenSearchServer and there I can do a lot of things I just > could imagine before. (This is just a small free time project, but > still a bit important, perhaps.) So instead of a working fast local versatile solution, we get some handwaving promise that some search engines out of our control might do something different that might be just as good if we really squint in the right way. I don't buy that. It will have its best case scenario for stuff not actually written/maintained in Texinfo (or something providing similar information amounts) and consequently completely missing any useful index. With that starting point, a search engine is better than nothing. Against a reasonably well-maintained manual index, however: no comparison. -- David Kastrup