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 16:30:37 +0900 Message-ID: <87k31mdbhe.fsf@uwakimon.sk.tsukuba.ac.jp> References: <87388bnzha.fsf@newcastle.ac.uk> NNTP-Posting-Host: plane.gmane.org Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=utf-8 X-Trace: ger.gmane.org 1419060682 19206 80.91.229.3 (20 Dec 2014 07:31:22 GMT) X-Complaints-To: usenet@ger.gmane.org NNTP-Posting-Date: Sat, 20 Dec 2014 07:31:22 +0000 (UTC) Cc: "Allen S. Rout" , emacs-devel@gnu.org To: phillip.lord@newcastle.ac.uk (Phillip Lord) Original-X-From: emacs-devel-bounces+ged-emacs-devel=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Sat Dec 20 08:31:15 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 1Y2EVN-0006n0-QA for ged-emacs-devel@m.gmane.org; Sat, 20 Dec 2014 08:31:13 +0100 Original-Received: from localhost ([::1]:33624 helo=lists.gnu.org) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1Y2EVN-00018k-32 for ged-emacs-devel@m.gmane.org; Sat, 20 Dec 2014 02:31:13 -0500 Original-Received: from eggs.gnu.org ([2001:4830:134:3::10]:33740) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1Y2EV4-00018F-Sb for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Sat, 20 Dec 2014 02:31:02 -0500 Original-Received: from Debian-exim by eggs.gnu.org with spam-scanned (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1Y2EUx-0003kg-CO for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Sat, 20 Dec 2014 02:30:54 -0500 Original-Received: from shako.sk.tsukuba.ac.jp ([130.158.97.161]:33699) by eggs.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1Y2EUx-0003jJ-2U for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Sat, 20 Dec 2014 02:30:47 -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 A6F051C3843; Sat, 20 Dec 2014 16:30:37 +0900 (JST) Original-Received: by uwakimon.sk.tsukuba.ac.jp (Postfix, from userid 1000) id 820D01A2CFC; Sat, 20 Dec 2014 16:30:37 +0900 (JST) In-Reply-To: <87388bnzha.fsf@newcastle.ac.uk> 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:180359 Archived-At: Phillip Lord writes: > If Eric is trying to stir things up a bit, that is surely not a bad > thing. "Double, double, toil and trouble! Fire, burn, and cauldron, bubble!" you mean? Eric is stirring up nothing but trouble with his intemperate vituperations. Karl is a little more circumspect, but he is also going to fail. Of all free software philosophers, even more so than RMS, *those two* should be well aware of the distinction between the *software* and the *project*. A work of free software is the world's, 'tis true, but nary a project be that be not "owned" by its participants. The right way to stir things up is to appeal to the choir, not to the tourists gawking at the icons in the back of the hall. The criterion for appeal of a new documentation format is clear: present a proof of concept translation of a "representative" Emacs manual[1] to the new source format, along with built manuals in the target format(s) and any tools needed to implement the desired navigation features. The cost is high, but experience shows that worthwhile moves usually have redundant costs being paid. For example, I've observed 6 VCS transitions closely. In 3 cases (including the current move of Emacs to git), the choice was based on consensus of the involved developers, and only one conversion was done (but note that Eric's conversion was not based on one of the existing git mirrors, and was done a couple dozen times I guess). In the other 3 cases, multiple repos were presented for consideration -- a lot of redundant effort from one point of view. In other cases (3 cases of issue tracker introduction), it was universally agreed that "some" was better than "none". In two cases, projects just took the first thing that had a volunteer to implement and run the tracker. In the case of Emacs, however, there was a strong demand that the existing email-centric workflow be extended, and the only candidate with a proof-of-concept implementation that satisfied that requirement was the current debbugs tracker. That despite protests that Bugzilla, Roundup, Trac, etc "can be" configured to be controlled by email. But no implementation was presented, and debbugs won by default. I suspect a careful study would substantiate such anecdotes. For the documentation format, the core members of the project clearly consider the existing Texinfo manuals to be adequate (and often, excellent). So there's no hurry to produce a proof of concept -- but I would say one is necessary, and the cost is not exorbitant according to common practice. Footnotes: [1] It needs to be an Emacs manual for ease of comparison. I don't think any of the naysayers would feel comfortable switching from Texinfo based on the now out-of-date org-mode manual translation, for example.