Re: master df8e705eb2 1/2: Don't refer to Emacs 24.3 or older in FAQ

Re: master df8e705eb2 1/2: Don't refer to Emacs 24.3 or older in FAQ

[Eli Zaretskii]

> branch: master
> commit df8e705eb2077b62e3c3a13d0d596362c05542c7
> Author: Stefan Kangas <stefankangas@gmail.com>
> Commit: Stefan Kangas <stefankangas@gmail.com>
> 
>     Don't refer to Emacs 24.3 or older in FAQ

I'm not sure this is a good idea.  The FAQ is special, unlike the rest
of our documentation, in that it doesn't target only the version with
which it comes.

I see no particular reason to remove those references to old versions
from the FAQ.

Re: master df8e705eb2 1/2: Don't refer to Emacs 24.3 or older in FAQ

[Stefan Kangas]

Eli Zaretskii <eliz@gnu.org> writes:

>> branch: master
>> commit df8e705eb2077b62e3c3a13d0d596362c05542c7
>> Author: Stefan Kangas <stefankangas@gmail.com>
>> Commit: Stefan Kangas <stefankangas@gmail.com>
>>
>>     Don't refer to Emacs 24.3 or older in FAQ
>
> I'm not sure this is a good idea.  The FAQ is special, unlike the rest
> of our documentation, in that it doesn't target only the version with
> which it comes.

I followed our normal obsoletion policy, where we have deleted things
after 10 years.  But I see your point.  We could perhaps decide for how
long we want to keep things, and then add a note to that effect to
efaq.texi?  That way, it'll be easier to maintain some consistency going
forward.  For example, how about adding a note to remove references to
Emacs versions released more than 15 years ago (or something like that)?

> I see no particular reason to remove those references to old versions
> from the FAQ.

Sure, I guess it's more a matter of when they're old enough to be a bit
irrelevant.  (Any feature was technically introduced in some version,
but we don't always mention it.)

Re: master df8e705eb2 1/2: Don't refer to Emacs 24.3 or older in FAQ

[Eli Zaretskii]

> From: Stefan Kangas <stefankangas@gmail.com>
> Date: Thu, 25 Aug 2022 22:33:26 +0000
> Cc: emacs-devel@gnu.org
> 
> > I'm not sure this is a good idea.  The FAQ is special, unlike the rest
> > of our documentation, in that it doesn't target only the version with
> > which it comes.
> 
> I followed our normal obsoletion policy, where we have deleted things
> after 10 years.  But I see your point.  We could perhaps decide for how
> long we want to keep things, and then add a note to that effect to
> efaq.texi?  That way, it'll be easier to maintain some consistency going
> forward.  For example, how about adding a note to remove references to
> Emacs versions released more than 15 years ago (or something like that)?
> 
> > I see no particular reason to remove those references to old versions
> > from the FAQ.
> 
> Sure, I guess it's more a matter of when they're old enough to be a bit
> irrelevant.  (Any feature was technically introduced in some version,
> but we don't always mention it.)

What would be the reason to remove references to old Emacs versions
from the FAQ?  I'm thinking maybe we should simply exempt the FAQ from
this process, which is, of course, perfectly valid for the other
documentation.

The FAQ is supposed to be a place where people could look for
information like "since when does Emacs do this-and-that?".

Re: master df8e705eb2 1/2: Don't refer to Emacs 24.3 or older in FAQ

[Stefan Kangas]

Eli Zaretskii <eliz@gnu.org> writes:

> What would be the reason to remove references to old Emacs versions
> from the FAQ?  I'm thinking maybe we should simply exempt the FAQ from
> this process, which is, of course, perfectly valid for the other
> documentation.

The purpose is mostly just to make the text easier to read, and to make
it not look outdated.  For example, references to this new cool feature
in Emacs 21 is not likely to be very relevant or helpful in 2022.

But you may be right in general.  Maybe we should really just delete the
absolutely antique stuff.

> The FAQ is supposed to be a place where people could look for
> information like "since when does Emacs do this-and-that?".

I was thinking also in terms of confused newcomers, who might be
overwhelmed by secondary details.  (As in: "Wait, which version of Emacs
am I using?  Is it Emacs 22 or newer?")

Re: master df8e705eb2 1/2: Don't refer to Emacs 24.3 or older in FAQ

[Eli Zaretskii]

> From: Stefan Kangas <stefankangas@gmail.com>
> Date: Fri, 26 Aug 2022 20:24:38 +0000
> Cc: emacs-devel@gnu.org
> 
> Eli Zaretskii <eliz@gnu.org> writes:
> 
> > What would be the reason to remove references to old Emacs versions
> > from the FAQ?  I'm thinking maybe we should simply exempt the FAQ from
> > this process, which is, of course, perfectly valid for the other
> > documentation.
> 
> The purpose is mostly just to make the text easier to read, and to make
> it not look outdated.  For example, references to this new cool feature
> in Emacs 21 is not likely to be very relevant or helpful in 2022.

Saying that Emacs can do something since version XX.YY can never be
outdated.  And I don't think a reference to Emacs 21 can necessarily
be irrelevant or unhelpful nowadays.  It depends on what it says and
how it says that.

Thus, changing the wording to reflect the time that has passed is
perfectly fine wherever it makes sense.  But removing the text
entirely just because it mentions an old version is IMO wrong for the
FAQ.

> But you may be right in general.  Maybe we should really just delete the
> absolutely antique stuff.

Like what, for example?

> > The FAQ is supposed to be a place where people could look for
> > information like "since when does Emacs do this-and-that?".
> 
> I was thinking also in terms of confused newcomers, who might be
> overwhelmed by secondary details.  (As in: "Wait, which version of Emacs
> am I using?  Is it Emacs 22 or newer?")

The FAQ is not a mandatory reading for newcomers, so I'm not sure this
use case is very important.  And people nowadays know that the version
of the program they run is supposed to be somewhere in Help->About.

So I think we should only make sure the wording doesn't imply that,
say, Emacs 212 happened yesterday, and otherwise keep the references
to old versions in the FAQ.

Re: master df8e705eb2 1/2: Don't refer to Emacs 24.3 or older in FAQ

[Lynn Winebarger]

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On Fri, Aug 26, 2022, 4:26 PM Stefan Kangas <stefankangas@gmail.com> wrote:

> Eli Zaretskii <eliz@gnu.org> writes:
>
> > What would be the reason to remove references to old Emacs versions
> > from the FAQ?  I'm thinking maybe we should simply exempt the FAQ from
> > this process, which is, of course, perfectly valid for the other
> > documentation.
>
> The purpose is mostly just to make the text easier to read, and to make
> it not look outdated.  For example, references to this new cool feature
> in Emacs 21 is not likely to be very relevant or helpful in 2022.
>
> But you may be right in general.  Maybe we should really just delete the
> absolutely antique stuff.
>

I've come across a number of packages where the last published version
still uses the cl library.  I had to download the oldest version of Emacs
to get a manual for it to determine how to convert it to cl-lib.
I'm just giving a concrete illustration of why someone may have a relevant
question about a very ancient feature, given the pace at which Emacs truly
evicts support for obsolete features.

Lynn

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Re: master df8e705eb2 1/2: Don't refer to Emacs 24.3 or older in FAQ

[Richard Stallman]

[[[ To any NSA and FBI agents reading my email: please consider    ]]]
[[[ whether defending the US Constitution against all enemies,     ]]]
[[[ foreign or domestic, requires you to follow Snowden's example. ]]]

There is no harm in keeping an obsolete question in the FAQ for extra
years.  Let's not rush to delete them.
-- 
Dr Richard Stallman (https://stallman.org)
Chief GNUisance of the GNU Project (https://gnu.org)
Founder, Free Software Foundation (https://fsf.org)
Internet Hall-of-Famer (https://internethalloffame.org)

Re: master df8e705eb2 1/2: Don't refer to Emacs 24.3 or older in FAQ

[Lars Ingebrigtsen]

Richard Stallman <rms@gnu.org> writes:

> There is no harm in keeping an obsolete question in the FAQ for extra
> years.  Let's not rush to delete them.

Nobody is rushing.

Stefan K. is following the guidelines for deletion of outdated items --
he's now deleting stuff referring to 24.3 and older (and 24.3 was
released in 2013).

So I'm totally fine with removing those, because it's unlikely to be
helpful, and is instead making that document less useful, because people
have to wade through irrelevant stuff.