From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Path: news.gmane.org!not-for-mail From: Paul Eggert Newsgroups: gmane.emacs.devel Subject: Re: Have you all gone crazy? Was: On being web-friendly and why info must die Date: Tue, 23 Dec 2014 13:08:39 -0800 Organization: UCLA Computer Science Department Message-ID: <5499D9D7.3010405@cs.ucla.edu> References: <87388bnzha.fsf@newcastle.ac.uk> <87k31mdbhe.fsf@uwakimon.sk.tsukuba.ac.jp> <87tx0qiv45.fsf@fencepost.gnu.org> <87h9wqd3i5.fsf@uwakimon.sk.tsukuba.ac.jp> <87fvc8kdsp.fsf@gnu.org> <6e11cd85-09a0-4b7a-baa2-0c810bdebbce@default> <871tnsg0w7.fsf@fencepost.gnu.org> <834msoqrsg.fsf@gnu.org> <5498C82D.5080605@cs.ucla.edu> <54991A97.1070605@cs.ucla.edu> <83zjaenryt.fsf@gnu.org> NNTP-Posting-Host: plane.gmane.org Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=utf-8; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Trace: ger.gmane.org 1419368975 31301 80.91.229.3 (23 Dec 2014 21:09:35 GMT) X-Complaints-To: usenet@ger.gmane.org NNTP-Posting-Date: Tue, 23 Dec 2014 21:09:35 +0000 (UTC) Cc: emacs-devel@gnu.org, lennart.borgman@gmail.com, adatgyujto@gmail.com, drew.adams@oracle.com, yuri.v.khan@gmail.com To: Eli Zaretskii Original-X-From: emacs-devel-bounces+ged-emacs-devel=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Tue Dec 23 22:09:25 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 1Y3Whk-00055P-QI for ged-emacs-devel@m.gmane.org; Tue, 23 Dec 2014 22:09:20 +0100 Original-Received: from localhost ([::1]:46268 helo=lists.gnu.org) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1Y3Whj-00064Z-Uf for ged-emacs-devel@m.gmane.org; Tue, 23 Dec 2014 16:09:19 -0500 Original-Received: from eggs.gnu.org ([2001:4830:134:3::10]:43155) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1Y3WhY-00064I-Qv for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Tue, 23 Dec 2014 16:09:16 -0500 Original-Received: from Debian-exim by eggs.gnu.org with spam-scanned (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1Y3WhR-0000j7-BZ for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Tue, 23 Dec 2014 16:09:08 -0500 Original-Received: from smtp.cs.ucla.edu ([131.179.128.62]:50355) by eggs.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1Y3WhG-0000eP-J7; Tue, 23 Dec 2014 16:08:50 -0500 Original-Received: from localhost (localhost.localdomain [127.0.0.1]) by smtp.cs.ucla.edu (Postfix) with ESMTP id 12D66A60049; Tue, 23 Dec 2014 13:08:49 -0800 (PST) X-Virus-Scanned: amavisd-new at smtp.cs.ucla.edu Original-Received: from smtp.cs.ucla.edu ([127.0.0.1]) by localhost (smtp.cs.ucla.edu [127.0.0.1]) (amavisd-new, port 10024) with ESMTP id 8fB397+4iVf2; Tue, 23 Dec 2014 13:08:40 -0800 (PST) Original-Received: from [192.168.1.9] (pool-71-177-17-123.lsanca.dsl-w.verizon.net [71.177.17.123]) by smtp.cs.ucla.edu (Postfix) with ESMTPSA id 43DB3A60050; Tue, 23 Dec 2014 13:08:40 -0800 (PST) User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (X11; Linux x86_64; rv:31.0) Gecko/20100101 Thunderbird/31.3.0 In-Reply-To: <83zjaenryt.fsf@gnu.org> X-detected-operating-system: by eggs.gnu.org: GNU/Linux 2.6.x X-Received-From: 131.179.128.62 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:180604 Archived-At: Eli Zaretskii wrote: > You just gave up too soon, that's all. No I didn't. I switched from the info index (which didn't work for me first time) to a search engine (which did). Why should I insist on slowing myself down with inferior technology? Of course this was just one example, but it's representative. It's long been my experience that search engines work better than traditional indexes for most of my questions about Emacs functionality. And I don't think my experience is at all atypical. Feel free to tweak the manually-maintained index, but in the end I expect the tweaks won't benefit most users. > There are 880 > nodes in the ELisp manual, out of which 116, including "Time of Day", > didn't follow that rule (they do now) Thanks, that's undoubtedly an improvement to the manually-maintained index, but it underscores a problem with the way we're currently using Texinfo. Here's an extract from the current emacs-24 documentation source: * Standard Abbrev Tables:: Abbrev tables used by various major modes. ... @node Standard Abbrev Tables @section Standard Abbrev Tables @cindex standard abbrev tables ... * Standard Abbrev Tables:: Abbrev tables used by various major modes. Although this kind of repetition may be needed in the *output* of makeinfo, it shouldn't be necessary in its *input*. I know why each input line is there, and of course there are arguments for doing it in this annoyingly prolix and error-prone way, but overall it's clearly a mess that gets in the way of real improvements, and contributors shouldn't have to put up with this sort of thing.