Re: Improve access to documentation in Info format

[Richard Stallman <rms@gnu.org>]

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  > Could you comment on the user-facing features that would no longer work
  > with such "visibly wrong" translated-from-other-formats Info manuals?

Here's an example.  Three important Texinfo constructs, used in every manual,
are @dfn, @emph and @var.  In printed output, they are all equivalent:
they put text in italics.

But in plain text output, without fonts, they do different things.
@dfn puts "..." around the text.  @emph puts _..._ around the text.
And @var upcases the text.

Using italic for all three purposes is clear, because readers can tell
from the context which meaning the italics means.  But in the absence
of italic font, these constructs have to be indicated in other ways,
and there is no one way that makes all three clear.

Anoter case is @code and @samp.  In printed output, they use the
fixed-width code font.  @samp adds paired singlequotes, and @code does
not.

In plain text output, without distinction by fondt, the best handling
I can think of is to is output `...' for both @code and Ssamp.  It
does not distinguish them from each other, but it at least
distinguishes both of them from ordinary text.

"Natural" markup notations that try to resemble ordinary punctuation
have trouble making these distinctions.  They are based on WYGIWYW,
What You Get Is What You Write.  So if several markup constructs get
you the same thing in one output format, you have to write them the
same way in the source, so they all get you the same thing in each
output format.

I am not saying it is _impossible_ to extend any of those markup
systems to make these distinctions.  Quite the contrary, I hope
someone will invent a way, and implement it.  Then, with luck, we
could perhaps adopt that markup system for source code for our
manuals.

But this would involve making the markup system less "natural".

Untll someone invents that, we can't use a natural markup notation
to replace Texinfo format.

-- 
Dr Richard Stallman (https://stallman.org)
Chief GNUisance of the GNU Project (https://gnu.org)
Founder, Free Software Foundation (https://fsf.org)
Internet Hall-of-Famer (https://internethalloffame.org)