Re: INFO on add-ons

[Karl Eichwalder <keichwa@gmx.net>]

"Stephen J. Turnbull" <stephen@xemacs.org> writes:

>     Miles> Why?  SGML and XML are quite unreadable compared to
>     Miles> texinfo.

This depends on the editor or viewer you are using.  I'm told the new
GNOME help system is designed to work with raw SGML (XML) files.

> In a buzzword, Document Object Model.  I don't read texinfo, I read
> Info.  And I don't want to write or edit texinfo, I want to move
> hierarchical objects around (I'm mostly a manager, not a programmer;
> ie, with docs, I edit and compile, not write). 

That's a good point.

Often, Texinfo commands are terse and thus obscure (I always have to
lookup how the reference commands are considered to work).  Don't take
me wrong---for some of my projects I prefer Texinfo, but in general I
hesitate to recommend the format to other writers.

Note, SGML offers features designed for readability: often it's possible
to omit end "tags" or minimize "tags":

    <em>foo</em> == <em/foo/

Not too mention the shortref/usemap feature which enables you to define
soemthing like:

    <p> == "\n\n"

    </row> == "|" or "\n"

And thus it's possible to write terse (and obsure) tables; in general
this feature is considerd harmful ;)

[I still believe HTML 2 is readable...]

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