From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Path: main.gmane.org!not-for-mail From: "Stephen J. Turnbull" Newsgroups: gmane.emacs.devel Subject: Re: INFO on add-ons Date: Mon, 02 Sep 2002 15:03:54 +0900 Organization: The XEmacs Project Sender: emacs-devel-admin@gnu.org Message-ID: <87adn1x705.fsf@tleepslib.sk.tsukuba.ac.jp> References: <3D728E82.8000808@cox.net> <87ptvxxkoj.fsf@tleepslib.sk.tsukuba.ac.jp> <87fzwtxad9.fsf@tleepslib.sk.tsukuba.ac.jp> NNTP-Posting-Host: localhost.gmane.org Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii X-Trace: main.gmane.org 1030946675 24544 127.0.0.1 (2 Sep 2002 06:04:35 GMT) X-Complaints-To: usenet@main.gmane.org NNTP-Posting-Date: Mon, 2 Sep 2002 06:04:35 +0000 (UTC) Cc: emacs-devel@gnu.org, xemacs-design@xemacs.org Return-path: Original-Received: from quimby.gnus.org ([80.91.224.244]) by main.gmane.org with esmtp (Exim 3.35 #1 (Debian)) id 17lkK9-0006Nj-00 for ; Mon, 02 Sep 2002 08:04:33 +0200 Original-Received: from monty-python.gnu.org ([199.232.76.173]) by quimby.gnus.org with esmtp (Exim 3.12 #1 (Debian)) id 17lksE-00052O-00 for ; Mon, 02 Sep 2002 08:39:47 +0200 Original-Received: from localhost ([127.0.0.1] helo=monty-python.gnu.org) by monty-python.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.10) id 17lkLb-0006bi-00; Mon, 02 Sep 2002 02:06:03 -0400 Original-Received: from list by monty-python.gnu.org with tmda-scanned (Exim 4.10) id 17lkKb-0006aJ-00 for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Mon, 02 Sep 2002 02:05:01 -0400 Original-Received: from mail by monty-python.gnu.org with spam-scanned (Exim 4.10) id 17lkKZ-0006a1-00 for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Mon, 02 Sep 2002 02:05:00 -0400 Original-Received: from tleepslib.sk.tsukuba.ac.jp ([130.158.98.109]) by monty-python.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.10) id 17lkKY-0006Zn-00 for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Mon, 02 Sep 2002 02:04:58 -0400 Original-Received: from localhost ([127.0.0.1] helo=tleepslib.sk.tsukuba.ac.jp ident=steve) by tleepslib.sk.tsukuba.ac.jp with esmtp (Exim 3.35 #1 (Debian)) id 17lkJa-0006TE-00 for ; Mon, 02 Sep 2002 15:03:58 +0900 Original-To: Miles Bader In-Reply-To: (Miles Bader's message of "02 Sep 2002 14:04:29 +0900") Original-Lines: 50 User-Agent: Gnus/5.090007 (Oort Gnus v0.07) XEmacs/21.4 (Informed Management, i686-pc-linux) X-Delivery-Agent: TMDA/0.61 Errors-To: emacs-devel-admin@gnu.org X-BeenThere: emacs-devel@gnu.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.0.11 Precedence: bulk List-Help: List-Post: List-Subscribe: , List-Id: Emacs development discussions. List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: Xref: main.gmane.org gmane.emacs.devel:7317 X-Report-Spam: http://spam.gmane.org/gmane.emacs.devel:7317 >>>>> "Miles" == Miles Bader writes: Miles> "Stephen J. Turnbull" writes: >> Better to spend the effort on having Emacs be smart about the >> info files themselves, which either it can read or it doesn't >> matter, than to have GNU and XEmacs.ORG try be anal about stuff >> that's not under our control. Miles> From my point of view (debian with some random stuff Miles> compiled from source in /usr/local), everything seems to Miles> work pretty well as-is. You're a low-maintenance kinda guy, Miles. ;-) Considering that (AFAIK) install-info was originally written for Debian by Ian Jackson (and on my Debian systems it is still part of dpkg, not info or texinfo), it's hardly surprising that it works on Debian.[1] However, there is no "the" install process. We have ours, you have yours, upstream Lisp maintainers have theirs, Debian has its Emacs Policy, the HP/UX Porting Centre has its own way, etc. In the face of that, I don't see how to guarantee that install-info will get run. If I don't have to, I don't want to think about it, either. OTOH, if you run XEmacs, you will get a sensible Info Dir node, or your money back. ;-) The approach I'm talking about _is_ "as-is" on XEmacs, which works pretty well for us, too. When we notice a problem with indexing of an Info file we distribute, we patch the source with +@dircategory ... +@direntry ... + [...] +@end direntry This is invariably accepted immediately upstream, and if not, it is trivial to maintain. One problem + one patch = one solution---and no thought required. Maintainer Heaven! Footnotes: [1] Note also that Debian goes to extreme lengths to insure cooperation of packages it distributes among themselves, and where possible interoperation with other systems. -- Institute of Policy and Planning Sciences http://turnbull.sk.tsukuba.ac.jp University of Tsukuba Tennodai 1-1-1 Tsukuba 305-8573 JAPAN My nostalgia for Icon makes me forget about any of the bad things. I don't have much nostalgia for Perl, so its faults I remember. Scott Gilbert c.l.py