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: On being web-friendly and why info must die Date: Fri, 12 Dec 2014 11:40:35 +0100 Message-ID: <87lhmdducc.fsf@fencepost.gnu.org> References: <20141205123549.GA29331@thyrsus.com> <87ppbqb6s1.fsf@gnu.org> <87388mme16.fsf@newcastle.ac.uk> <87a92u86wv.fsf@gnu.org> <548A6893.4020403@cs.ucla.edu> <87tx11dwa4.fsf@fencepost.gnu.org> <20141212102415.GB19998@thyrsus.com> NNTP-Posting-Host: plane.gmane.org Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain X-Trace: ger.gmane.org 1418380857 15458 80.91.229.3 (12 Dec 2014 10:40:57 GMT) X-Complaints-To: usenet@ger.gmane.org NNTP-Posting-Date: Fri, 12 Dec 2014 10:40:57 +0000 (UTC) Cc: emacs-devel@gnu.org To: "Eric S. Raymond" Original-X-From: emacs-devel-bounces+ged-emacs-devel=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Fri Dec 12 11:40:50 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 1XzNeT-0001pU-2F for ged-emacs-devel@m.gmane.org; Fri, 12 Dec 2014 11:40:49 +0100 Original-Received: from localhost ([::1]:56440 helo=lists.gnu.org) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1XzNeS-000766-L4 for ged-emacs-devel@m.gmane.org; Fri, 12 Dec 2014 05:40:48 -0500 Original-Received: from eggs.gnu.org ([2001:4830:134:3::10]:44406) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1XzNeL-000756-An for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Fri, 12 Dec 2014 05:40:42 -0500 Original-Received: from Debian-exim by eggs.gnu.org with spam-scanned (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1XzNeG-0002dB-TC for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Fri, 12 Dec 2014 05:40:41 -0500 Original-Received: from fencepost.gnu.org ([2001:4830:134:3::e]:40523) by eggs.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1XzNeG-0002d7-MU for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Fri, 12 Dec 2014 05:40:36 -0500 Original-Received: from localhost ([127.0.0.1]:47698 helo=lola) by fencepost.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1XzNeG-0001iX-1R; Fri, 12 Dec 2014 05:40:36 -0500 Original-Received: by lola (Postfix, from userid 1000) id 9069AE08F7; Fri, 12 Dec 2014 11:40:35 +0100 (CET) In-Reply-To: <20141212102415.GB19998@thyrsus.com> (Eric S. Raymond's message of "Fri, 12 Dec 2014 05:24:15 -0500") User-Agent: Gnus/5.13 (Gnus v5.13) Emacs/25.0.50 (gnu/linux) X-detected-operating-system: by eggs.gnu.org: Error: Malformed IPv6 address (bad octet value). X-Received-From: 2001:4830:134:3::e 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:179878 Archived-At: "Eric S. Raymond" writes: > David Kastrup : >> So name a single respect in which any proposal is significantly better. >> So far we had "it's new and hipper, so for the next two years it might >> garner more fans". What else? > > Increased visibility to search engines. That's really important! Red herring. Texinfo-generated HTML is found just fine by search engines. I do it all the time for LilyPond's manuals. Now LilyPond's manuals are nice and helpful with lots of images, and people are referred to it a lot partly because of that. So it has good link coverage which makes search engines happy. So it boils down to "make your manuals good and helpful so that people refer to it a lot". The temporary hipness of the source language does not really play into that a lot. If we add a command to the Info reader that will crank out the corresponding web page for locally installed Info documentation so that it can easily be cut and pasted into a reply on a public mailing list for reference, this will do a lot more for increased page rank to search engines (if they are GNU _manuals_ linked to on the project pages, they are of course _visible_ to search engine crawlers) than messing with its source language. -- David Kastrup