From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Path: news.gmane.org!not-for-mail From: "Stephen J. Turnbull" 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 23:48:50 +0900 Message-ID: <87egrucr71.fsf@uwakimon.sk.tsukuba.ac.jp> 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> <87h9wqimf0.fsf@fencepost.gnu.org> NNTP-Posting-Host: plane.gmane.org Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=utf-8 X-Trace: ger.gmane.org 1419086978 349 80.91.229.3 (20 Dec 2014 14:49:38 GMT) X-Complaints-To: usenet@ger.gmane.org NNTP-Posting-Date: Sat, 20 Dec 2014 14:49:38 +0000 (UTC) Cc: Phillip Lord , "Allen S. Rout" , emacs-devel@gnu.org To: David Kastrup Original-X-From: emacs-devel-bounces+ged-emacs-devel=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Sat Dec 20 15:49:31 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 1Y2LLW-0008DU-Pb for ged-emacs-devel@m.gmane.org; Sat, 20 Dec 2014 15:49:30 +0100 Original-Received: from localhost ([::1]:34598 helo=lists.gnu.org) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1Y2LLW-0007jO-AB for ged-emacs-devel@m.gmane.org; Sat, 20 Dec 2014 09:49:30 -0500 Original-Received: from eggs.gnu.org ([2001:4830:134:3::10]:33907) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1Y2LLB-0007iz-FL for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Sat, 20 Dec 2014 09:49:16 -0500 Original-Received: from Debian-exim by eggs.gnu.org with spam-scanned (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1Y2LL3-0003t7-Uc for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Sat, 20 Dec 2014 09:49:09 -0500 Original-Received: from shako.sk.tsukuba.ac.jp ([130.158.97.161]:40429) by eggs.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1Y2LKv-0003p6-Do; Sat, 20 Dec 2014 09:48:53 -0500 Original-Received: from uwakimon.sk.tsukuba.ac.jp (uwakimon.sk.tsukuba.ac.jp [130.158.99.156]) (using TLSv1 with cipher AES256-SHA (256/256 bits)) (No client certificate requested) by shako.sk.tsukuba.ac.jp (Postfix) with ESMTPS id E59C01C3933; Sat, 20 Dec 2014 23:48:50 +0900 (JST) Original-Received: by uwakimon.sk.tsukuba.ac.jp (Postfix, from userid 1000) id BDDFB1A2CFC; Sat, 20 Dec 2014 23:48:50 +0900 (JST) In-Reply-To: <87h9wqimf0.fsf@fencepost.gnu.org> X-Mailer: VM undefined under 21.5 (beta34) "kale" acf1c26e3019 XEmacs Lucid (x86_64-unknown-linux) X-detected-operating-system: by eggs.gnu.org: GNU/Linux 3.x X-Received-From: 130.158.97.161 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:180378 Archived-At: David Kastrup writes: > Well, a lot of the complaints of people preferring man pages over > info pages significantly concern the organization of the _content_ > rather than a problem with the format. I'm sure they do. And I'm sure Emacs documentation could be vastly improved in that respect. But let me repeat myself: I don't know of any software manual that really shines. I know of a couple of great textbooks and the occasional excellent tutorial, but that's quite different from a reference manual. > The whole Git documentation is still available as Info [...]. > Perl documentation is structured into man pages [...]. Praising with faint damns, again? These have to be the poster children for "man page.s suck, *please* get us a better format." Turning them into Info make make them bearable. > > Sorry, David, but this is a *plus*, not a *minus*. The Emacs manuals > > will continue to be distributed with Emacs. Users with a full Emacs > > installed (OK, Debian users won't get them in the default "free" > > distribution) will have local access to the manuals. Local access is > > plenty fast whether broken up into multiple files or as a single large > > file, as applications like S5 prove. > > For mostly text-centric stuff, maybe. S5 happily does the usual number of equations and graphs for a lecture on economics (about 150 of the former and 50 of the latter, total of 200 images, for a typical 75 minute lecture with 50 slides). There are no noticable delays in Safari, Firefox, or Chrome. That should be sufficient for an Emacs documentation target format, I think. (I mostly still use LaTeX and PDF, though, because there's nothing like AUCTeX for doing technical writing, thank you very much, David.) > But that's what the HTML fans loudly claim to be uncool. I don't care what HTML fans claim to be uncool. I care about what has a chance of getting implemented in the Emacs project. Once we get the the HTML horse inside the walls, then the fanboys and gals can jump out and do their damnedest to turn Emacs documentation psychedelic. ISTM, though, that if it doesn't do text acceptably well it has no chance of being accepted, and on the contrary, nobody who matters to whether it is accepted (except you) will care if Lilypond docs are a bit slow. > Once you work on the divided HTML form, finding stuff via plain > text search and/or index gets really painful. And jumping around > several files refetches and rerenders them all the time. Oh, sure. Once again, we're agreeing violently. The problems of indexing and efficient node navigation need to be solved. I'm just saying that I believe they can be solved. We just need someone who cares enough about the format switch to step up to the plate and get to first base with a proof of concept. Unfortunately, I don't care that much. I just want people to stop vituperating about obsolete formats and minor inconveniences, and do something useful if they care enough.