Re: On being web-friendly and why info must die

[Eli Zaretskii <eliz@gnu.org>]

> From: Tom <adatgyujto@gmail.com>
> Date: Mon, 8 Dec 2014 14:21:52 +0000 (UTC)
> 
> So if you don't know the exact wording of what you are looking for
> then google is faster most of the time.
> 
> Info, for example, cannot do this, so it is faster only if you already
> know what you are looking for, you know the exact term, etc. In other
> cases, when looking up something new and unfamiliar in the docs, using
> Google is usually more efficient.

Did you know about "M-x info-apropos"?

Granted, that won't find the latest statement by President Obama or a
review of some movie.  Info is a system for consulting software
documentation, so don't expect it to find anything that isn't in some
manual.  But it does have many useful features for looking up things
in the software docs, e.g. see info-look.el.

By contrast, when you google for software docs, you can never know if
the hit you get is up to date or not.  To find that out, you need
quite a lot of additional research, which all but makes up for the
seemingly instant access and wealth of resources.

So before you dismiss Texinfo, give it a chance and study it,
especially its seldom used and little-known features.  If nothing
else, you will have your horizons widened and your payload enriched by
the ideas you see in action.

> > And this largely reminds me the discussion "make CUA the default because
> > it will attract new users familiar with Word/Notepad/etc.).
> 
> It's not about attracting, it's about eliminating arbitrary barriers
> of entry. When popular systems use CUA keys then it is a barrier for
> new users if they have to relearn these keys just for emacs.

What is it with you young people that you are so afraid of "barriers"?
Did someone sell you a fairy tail that there are no barriers in life,
except in Emacs and Texinfo?  If you cannot negotiate these
ridiculously low "barriers", how will you ever succeed in your life
out there?