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: Have you all gone crazy? Was: On being web-friendly and why info must die Date: Sat, 20 Dec 2014 12:45:39 +0100 Message-ID: <87d27eily4.fsf@fencepost.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> NNTP-Posting-Host: plane.gmane.org Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain X-Trace: ger.gmane.org 1419075963 4456 80.91.229.3 (20 Dec 2014 11:46:03 GMT) X-Complaints-To: usenet@ger.gmane.org NNTP-Posting-Date: Sat, 20 Dec 2014 11:46:03 +0000 (UTC) Cc: "Stephen J. Turnbull" , Phillip Lord , "Allen S. Rout" , Emacs-Devel devel To: Lennart Borgman Original-X-From: emacs-devel-bounces+ged-emacs-devel=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Sat Dec 20 12:45:58 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 1Y2ITs-0004PK-7D for ged-emacs-devel@m.gmane.org; Sat, 20 Dec 2014 12:45:56 +0100 Original-Received: from localhost ([::1]:34069 helo=lists.gnu.org) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1Y2ITr-0004Vx-Fl for ged-emacs-devel@m.gmane.org; Sat, 20 Dec 2014 06:45:55 -0500 Original-Received: from eggs.gnu.org ([2001:4830:134:3::10]:39026) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1Y2ITd-0004Vh-W8 for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Sat, 20 Dec 2014 06:45:43 -0500 Original-Received: from Debian-exim by eggs.gnu.org with spam-scanned (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1Y2ITc-0005uf-PT for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Sat, 20 Dec 2014 06:45:41 -0500 Original-Received: from fencepost.gnu.org ([2001:4830:134:3::e]:46442) by eggs.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1Y2ITc-0005ub-MQ for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Sat, 20 Dec 2014 06:45:40 -0500 Original-Received: from localhost ([127.0.0.1]:53615 helo=lola) by fencepost.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1Y2ITc-00005U-0K; Sat, 20 Dec 2014 06:45:40 -0500 Original-Received: by lola (Postfix, from userid 1000) id 828F3E056B; Sat, 20 Dec 2014 12:45:39 +0100 (CET) In-Reply-To: (Lennart Borgman's message of "Sat, 20 Dec 2014 12:10:19 +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:180372 Archived-At: Lennart Borgman writes: > On Sat, Dec 20, 2014 at 11:22 AM, Stephen J. Turnbull > wrote: >> David Kastrup writes: >> >> > There is actually another hidden hurdle that has not been >> > mentioned: the target format "Info" is not independent from the >> > manual's organization of content: content is organized into >> > node-sized chunks, with a somewhat hierarchical organization >> > intended to make all non-bottom nodes fit on a screen if feasible >> > in order to make navigation fast. >> >> I don't think this is a big problem, though. I don't see any reason >> why the organization into "nodes" or "pages" (as in the original >> intent of *nix "man page") would change. It's the obvious way (at >> least to me) to provide modularity in documentation to correspond to >> the modularity of the program. > > > With HTML5 you can use "ajax" which can make it very fast to fetch > small nodes. You simply just update that information on the web page > (instead of fetching the whole web page). > > http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ajax_(programming) A glimmer of possible solutions on the horizon does not seem like a sufficient incentive to throw an established working large established system overboard. Emacs has enough to work on without being the loss leader for new documentation approaches. Emacs is where Texinfo and Info are a best-fit solution, and 100% of Emacs users have the Emacs Info reader available. If one wants to experiment with alternative approaches, something like the glibc documentation would make a better candidate as it has much fewer inherent ties to the Texinfo/Info universe. -- David Kastrup