From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Path: news.gmane.org!not-for-mail From: David Kastrup Newsgroups: gmane.emacs.devel Subject: Re: having heterogenous doc (was Re: On being web-friendly and why info must die) Date: Sat, 06 Dec 2014 10:01:44 +0100 Organization: Organization?!? Message-ID: <878uilqhhj.fsf@fencepost.gnu.org> References: <20141205123549.GA29331@thyrsus.com> <87mw72lyzs.fsf@earlgrey.lan> <20141205190925.GA5067@thyrsus.com> <83h9x93leo.fsf@gnu.org> <20141205205320.GA7237@thyrsus.com> <87egsdst09.fsf@kima.orebokech.com> <20141205211826.GA7784@thyrsus.com> <87388t6b5s.fsf_-_@ferrier.me.uk> NNTP-Posting-Host: plane.gmane.org Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain X-Trace: ger.gmane.org 1417856544 11806 80.91.229.3 (6 Dec 2014 09:02:24 GMT) X-Complaints-To: usenet@ger.gmane.org NNTP-Posting-Date: Sat, 6 Dec 2014 09:02:24 +0000 (UTC) To: emacs-devel@gnu.org Original-X-From: emacs-devel-bounces+ged-emacs-devel=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Sat Dec 06 10:02:17 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 1XxBFo-0005io-EL for ged-emacs-devel@m.gmane.org; Sat, 06 Dec 2014 10:02:16 +0100 Original-Received: from localhost ([::1]:53801 helo=lists.gnu.org) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1XxBFn-0006j3-Rn for ged-emacs-devel@m.gmane.org; Sat, 06 Dec 2014 04:02:15 -0500 Original-Received: from eggs.gnu.org ([2001:4830:134:3::10]:51378) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1XxBFd-0006hT-1U for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Sat, 06 Dec 2014 04:02:11 -0500 Original-Received: from Debian-exim by eggs.gnu.org with spam-scanned (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1XxBFV-0002wB-Vh for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Sat, 06 Dec 2014 04:02:04 -0500 Original-Received: from plane.gmane.org ([80.91.229.3]:58245) by eggs.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1XxBFV-0002vv-Og for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Sat, 06 Dec 2014 04:01:57 -0500 Original-Received: from list by plane.gmane.org with local (Exim 4.69) (envelope-from ) id 1XxBFU-0005a5-B4 for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Sat, 06 Dec 2014 10:01:56 +0100 Original-Received: from x2f51fab.dyn.telefonica.de ([2.245.31.171]) by main.gmane.org with esmtp (Gmexim 0.1 (Debian)) id 1AlnuQ-0007hv-00 for ; Sat, 06 Dec 2014 10:01:56 +0100 Original-Received: from dak by x2f51fab.dyn.telefonica.de with local (Gmexim 0.1 (Debian)) id 1AlnuQ-0007hv-00 for ; Sat, 06 Dec 2014 10:01:56 +0100 X-Injected-Via-Gmane: http://gmane.org/ Original-Lines: 40 Original-X-Complaints-To: usenet@ger.gmane.org X-Gmane-NNTP-Posting-Host: x2f51fab.dyn.telefonica.de X-Face: 2FEFf>]>q>2iw=B6, xrUubRI>pR&Ml9=ao@P@i)L:\urd*t9M~y1^:+Y]'C0~{mAl`oQuAl \!3KEIp?*w`|bL5qr,H)LFO6Q=qx~iH4DN; i"; /yuIsqbLLCh/!U#X[S~(5eZ41to5f%E@'ELIi$t^ Vc\LWP@J5p^rst0+('>Er0=^1{]M9!p?&:\z]|;&=NP3AhB!B_bi^]Pfkw User-Agent: Gnus/5.13 (Gnus v5.13) Emacs/25.0.50 (gnu/linux) Cancel-Lock: sha1:zh82RxlJYC/IXYrufFitWcSjBpI= X-detected-operating-system: by eggs.gnu.org: Genre and OS details not recognized. X-Received-From: 80.91.229.3 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:179114 Archived-At: Nic Ferrier writes: > Wouldn't it be better to support more documentation formats? As an editor, Emacs certainly should strive to support commonly used documentation formats for editing purposes. That does not require fragmenting Emacs' documentation into different systems however. > The Emacs manual and the Elisp manual are very large, perhaps they > could be more usefully cut up. They are cut up into nodes and chapters and are navigated through their extensive indexes and hyperlinks. Cutting them up into disparate pieces of documentation makes it harder, not easier, to find relevant information. > This could happen over time, with the people doing it making smaller > manuals in texinfo or asciidoc or a few other formats? You mean, like the Elisp tutorial in doc/lispintro? Or the more than a dozen smaller manuals for particular Emacs subsystems in doc/misc? > And if the documentation reader allowed a consolidated index then it > would blur the lines between individual manuals. > > Wouldn't that be a good thing? Possibly. But using different or other documentation systems would not appear to have anything to do with that. > I think I am opposed to Emacs being written in multiple programming > languages but it seems like it would be ok to have the documentation > in whatever format people were comfortable with. You are confusing the formats the documentation is written in with the formats the documentation is read in. Multiple output formats are useful. Multiple input formats lead to a fragmentation of efforts. -- David Kastrup