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

[David Kastrup <dak@gnu.org>]

"Eric S. Raymond" <esr@thyrsus.com> writes:

> David Kastrup <dak@gnu.org>:
>> > But it would still be Texinfo, still be an essentially pointless
>> > barrier to learning how to contribute.
>> 
>> As opposed to AsciiDoc?  Really?
>
> Yes, asciidoc is far easier.  I speak as an experienced user of both.

I count 5 patches touching Documentation/ from you in Git, the only
major project basing its documentation on AsciiDoc.  That's less than
even my few patches.

Which, by the way, include

commit 4739809cd0ea12a8de006f9f086fdff9285189b8
Author: David Kastrup <dak@gnu.org>
Date:   Mon Aug 6 12:22:57 2007 +0200

    Add support for an info version of the user manual
    
    These patches use docbook2x in order to create an info version of the
    git user manual.  No existing Makefile targets (including "all") are
    touched, so you need to explicitly say
    
    make info
    sudo make install-info
    
    to get git.info created and installed.  If the info target directory
    does not already contain a "dir" file, no directory entry is created.
    This facilitates $(DESTDIR)-based installations.  The same could be
    achieved with
    
    sudo make INSTALL_INFO=: install-info
    
    explicitly.
    
    perl is used for patching up sub-par file and directory information in
    the Texinfo file.  It would be cleaner to place the respective info
    straight into user-manual.txt or the conversion configurations, but I
    find myself unable to find out how to do this with Asciidoc/Texinfo.
    
    Signed-off-by: David Kastrup <dak@gnu.org>

>> So if we don't have better alternatives, why not stick with what we
>> have?
>
> Because it's ugly, heavyweight, and a barrier to entry.  I know you
> do not understand this.

It must be hard for you being the only intelligent being in a world of
idiots, but it's not like this is a new experience for you.

> Alas, your failure to understand it does not prevent it from being a
> problem.

Rebasing Emacs documentation on a system for reasons only singularly
intelligent beings like you understand would appear to be a dangerous
move since you will not be available to save Emacs from the follies of
its programmers for all eternity.

So if you want to make a convincing pitch, you better come off your
condescending horse.

-- 
David Kastrup