From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Path: main.gmane.org!not-for-mail From: "Robert J. Chassell" Newsgroups: gmane.emacs.devel Subject: Re: A new online publishing tool for Texinfo documents. Date: Wed, 26 Nov 2003 21:36:04 +0000 (UTC) Sender: emacs-devel-bounces+emacs-devel=quimby.gnus.org@gnu.org Message-ID: References: <8765hcf7q8.fsf@kanga.tapsellferrier.co.uk> <3FC3A11D.8040408@yahoo.com> <3FC4F303.9040201@yahoo.com> Reply-To: bob@rattlesnake.com NNTP-Posting-Host: deer.gmane.org X-Trace: sea.gmane.org 1069882866 32221 80.91.224.253 (26 Nov 2003 21:41:06 GMT) X-Complaints-To: usenet@sea.gmane.org NNTP-Posting-Date: Wed, 26 Nov 2003 21:41:06 +0000 (UTC) Original-X-From: emacs-devel-bounces+emacs-devel=quimby.gnus.org@gnu.org Wed Nov 26 22:41:04 2003 Return-path: Original-Received: from quimby.gnus.org ([80.91.224.244]) by deer.gmane.org with esmtp (Exim 3.35 #1 (Debian)) id 1AP7PD-0001XP-00 for ; Wed, 26 Nov 2003 22:41:03 +0100 Original-Received: from monty-python.gnu.org ([199.232.76.173]) by quimby.gnus.org with esmtp (Exim 3.35 #1 (Debian)) id 1AP7PD-0005YU-00 for ; Wed, 26 Nov 2003 22:41:03 +0100 Original-Received: from localhost ([127.0.0.1] helo=monty-python.gnu.org) by monty-python.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.24) id 1AP8J5-0003AI-IN for emacs-devel@quimby.gnus.org; Wed, 26 Nov 2003 17:38:47 -0500 Original-Received: from list by monty-python.gnu.org with tmda-scanned (Exim 4.24) id 1AP8IE-0002pZ-SG for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Wed, 26 Nov 2003 17:37:54 -0500 Original-Received: from mail by monty-python.gnu.org with spam-scanned (Exim 4.24) id 1AP8Hh-0002Hj-MG for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Wed, 26 Nov 2003 17:37:52 -0500 Original-Received: from [140.186.114.245] (helo=rattlesnake.com) by monty-python.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.24) id 1AP8Hg-0002E6-FS for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Wed, 26 Nov 2003 17:37:21 -0500 Original-Received: by rattlesnake.com via sendmail from stdin id (Debian Smail3.2.0.115) Wed, 26 Nov 2003 21:36:04 +0000 (UTC) Original-To: emacs-devel@gnu.org In-reply-to: <3FC4F303.9040201@yahoo.com> (message from Kevin Rodgers on Wed, 26 Nov 2003 11:37:55 -0700) X-BeenThere: emacs-devel@gnu.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.2 Precedence: list List-Id: Emacs development discussions. List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , Errors-To: emacs-devel-bounces+emacs-devel=quimby.gnus.org@gnu.org Xref: main.gmane.org gmane.emacs.devel:18149 X-Report-Spam: http://spam.gmane.org/gmane.emacs.devel:18149 Nic said, "It's an additional format to solve the specific problem of reading documentation that you don't happen to have on your local machine." Kevin Rodgers replied First of all, I question whether an additional format is required, since that will demand that Emacs and other Info readers be modified to support the new format. But the proposed HTML format has nothing to do with Info! It is a different HTML format. Its intent is to enable standards compliant Web browsers to read documents on the Web (and if Web servers put in the requisit CGI, to enable Web browsers to navigate via search). Second, everyone seems to agree that Info's search and navigation facilities are superior to HTML; so shouldn't we take advantage of that? Right, that is why Info should not be changed (unless someone wants to enhance it by enabling slow connections between an Info doc server and the Info renderer; right now the connection must be fast). Third, Info files can be rendered very quickly (especially compared to HTML) because they have already been pre-processed from the Texinfo source, but the download time for Info is no worse than HTML because it's not much bigger than the source. I do not understand you. It takes me 17 minutes to download the Emacs Lisp Reference Manual. When I do the manual in Info format, I then later read it in Info. I do not wait 17 minutes and then start reading. The goal with the HTML/CGI proposal is that if I were to browse the manual remotely in a Web browser, I would need to download only small parts -- nodes most likely -- quickly, so I would not have to wait 17 minutes. Searching an entire document, whether it's in Info format or HTML and whether it's a monolithic entity or split into pieces still requires that the data be downloaded. No, it does not. That is the point of a CGI script. You do *not* have to download a whole document if the serving computer does the work for you. -- Robert J. Chassell Rattlesnake Enterprises http://www.rattlesnake.com GnuPG Key ID: 004B4AC8 http://www.teak.cc bob@rattlesnake.com