From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Path: news.gmane.org!not-for-mail From: David Engster Newsgroups: gmane.emacs.devel Subject: Re: On being web-friendly and why info must die Date: Fri, 12 Dec 2014 16:09:23 +0100 Message-ID: <87r3w4rjks.fsf@engster.org> References: <20141205123549.GA29331@thyrsus.com> <2815659.zRQ0WWWeRr@descartes> <20141205175810.GD3120@thyrsus.com> <87wq66ufyt.fsf@wanadoo.es> <87zjb04tlw.fsf@gmx.us> <87bnnfve9c.fsf@dod.no> <871to5kt1a.fsf@newcastle.ac.uk> NNTP-Posting-Host: plane.gmane.org Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain X-Trace: ger.gmane.org 1418397010 22078 80.91.229.3 (12 Dec 2014 15:10:10 GMT) X-Complaints-To: usenet@ger.gmane.org NNTP-Posting-Date: Fri, 12 Dec 2014 15:10:10 +0000 (UTC) Cc: Kyle Andrews , sb@dod.no, rms@gnu.org, 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 Fri Dec 12 16:10:01 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 1XzRqz-00066y-AH for ged-emacs-devel@m.gmane.org; Fri, 12 Dec 2014 16:10:01 +0100 Original-Received: from localhost ([::1]:57757 helo=lists.gnu.org) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1XzRqy-0004rW-PP for ged-emacs-devel@m.gmane.org; Fri, 12 Dec 2014 10:10:00 -0500 Original-Received: from eggs.gnu.org ([2001:4830:134:3::10]:45647) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1XzRqb-0004oF-NS for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Fri, 12 Dec 2014 10:09:42 -0500 Original-Received: from Debian-exim by eggs.gnu.org with spam-scanned (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1XzRqW-0003dm-IG for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Fri, 12 Dec 2014 10:09:37 -0500 Original-Received: from randomsample.de ([5.45.97.173]:43461) by eggs.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1XzRqW-0003dF-9F; Fri, 12 Dec 2014 10:09:32 -0500 DKIM-Signature: v=1; a=rsa-sha256; q=dns/txt; c=relaxed/relaxed; d=randomsample.de; s=a; h=Content-Type:MIME-Version:Message-ID:Date:References:In-Reply-To:Subject:Cc:To:From; bh=uWHorYTbGa3RgITDPYA5mfAonPpclIzGMSG0n0LjGLQ=; b=fJV2FsrJwf6rC6bqHjjRmhnYk6GU/fZO101oD81PqJewMloljvmB5G0QRk1Ji5HmHP7hCH72aH1vG8UKFMqVBTQ1slnsUSEnTiqYck00or6Q/+PWH/lm6oTBJfszZ0jk; Original-Received: from ip4d154cb9.dynamic.kabel-deutschland.de ([77.21.76.185] helo=spaten) by randomsample.de with esmtpsa (TLS1.2:DHE_RSA_AES_128_CBC_SHA1:128) (Exim 4.80) (envelope-from ) id 1XzRqT-0007XU-93; Fri, 12 Dec 2014 16:09:29 +0100 In-Reply-To: <871to5kt1a.fsf@newcastle.ac.uk> (Phillip Lord's message of "Fri, 12 Dec 2014 11:26:57 +0000") User-Agent: Gnus/5.13001 (Ma Gnus v0.10) Emacs/24.3.91 (gnu/linux) X-detected-operating-system: by eggs.gnu.org: GNU/Linux 3.x X-Received-From: 5.45.97.173 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:179921 Archived-At: phillip.lord@newcastle.ac.uk (Phillip Lord) writes: > Richard Stallman writes: >> > John Kitchin wrote a GFDL licensed book on Density Functional Theory (a >> > computationally efficient way of computing many quantum mechanical >> > properties of materials) in Org mode. >> >> I am glad he did, but in order for Org format to be a usable format >> for GNU documentation, it needs to be fully documented. To be good >> for the purpose, this documentation should not be dispersed among >> other unrelated topics such as outlines, memos, or time logging. > > Org-mode does all of that, but doesn't have to do any of that. The > org-mode manual link which Achim Gratz is worth looking at. OK, I took a look. But more importantly, I actually *exported* that thing to HTML. Apparently, all the people who are pitching Org as an alternative to Texinfo have never actually tried that, because then they would have witnessed this: > time emacs --batch -Q orgmanual.org --eval "(with-current-buffer \"orgmanual.org\" (org-export-to-file (quote html) \"orgmanual.html\"))" emacs --batch -Q orgmanual.org --eval 117.49s user 0.12s system 100% cpu 1:57.56 total That's almost TWO MINUTES just for exporting one manual, and not even a particularly big one. And that's on a Core i7. For reference: For Org.texi, Texinfo5 needs ~8 seconds(!), and Texinfo4 needs ~0.7. For me, Texinfo 5.2 is on average roughly 15 times slower than Texinfo 4 (for generating HTML). And people already say THAT is too slow. And Org is about 167 times slower than Texinfo 4, at least for the Org manual (I haven't looked, but I'd be willing to bet that this does not scale linearly, so things are probably much worse for behemoths like the Calc manual). People were already saying around here that speed does not matter that much for Org because you rarely export. I don't agree with that at all, and I'm saying that as a heavy Org user. When writing stuff like documentation or presentations in Org, I export *very* frequently, for instance when I have to fit in pictures. The whole Emacs docs are currently roughly 350k lines of Texinfo. The Org manual is only 20k. So building the whole Emacs docs with Org would easily take over 30 minutes on a Core i7. Yes, you can build in parallel, so divide by four if you want, but that's still way too long, and not everybody has that kind of machine (it's anybody's guess how many hours this would take on RMS' MIPS-based laptop...). I love Org. But people, please be reasonable about what it can and what it cannot do. Unless someone makes the exporter *at least* an order of magnitude faster, this is a non-starter. -David