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From: Eli Zaretskii <eliz@is.elta.co.il>
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Subject: Re: INFO on add-ons
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On 5 Sep 2002, Miles Bader wrote:

> > > What's so great about <kindex key="C-x k"/> compared to @kindex C-x k ?
> > > What's so great about <sample>foobar</sample> compared to @sample{foobar} ?
> > 
> > The user base.  What do you think is the percentage of the technically
> > oriented people, especially "newcomers", that feel more comfortable with
> > the former?  Why should a "newcomer" who has a choice learn Texinfo if
> > she already knows XML?
> 
> I'd guess that the `user base' of XML falls into two camps:
> 
>   (1) Those who are afraid of any markup language, and would insist on
>       using a structure editor or something.  These people don't `know
>       XML'.
> 
>   (2) People who actually know XML.  These people will pick up
>       texinfo's syntax in about 35 seconds (both syntaxes are really
>       almost trivial).

Yes.  In my experience (with reviewing docs written by others and 
teaching them basic Texinfo), picking up Texinfo markup is the least of 
your problems when writing documentation.  Especially since Emacs makes 
it so easy to produce the markup with simple key sequences.