From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Path: news.gmane.org!not-for-mail From: Eli Zaretskii Newsgroups: gmane.emacs.help Subject: Re: info reference syntax Date: Mon, 12 Jan 2009 21:03:48 +0200 Message-ID: References: <20090109192209.GQ10452@stats.ox.ac.uk> NNTP-Posting-Host: lo.gmane.org X-Trace: ger.gmane.org 1231787103 21906 80.91.229.12 (12 Jan 2009 19:05:03 GMT) X-Complaints-To: usenet@ger.gmane.org NNTP-Posting-Date: Mon, 12 Jan 2009 19:05:03 +0000 (UTC) To: help-gnu-emacs@gnu.org Original-X-From: help-gnu-emacs-bounces+geh-help-gnu-emacs=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Mon Jan 12 20:06:15 2009 Return-path: Envelope-to: geh-help-gnu-emacs@m.gmane.org Original-Received: from lists.gnu.org ([199.232.76.165]) by lo.gmane.org with esmtp (Exim 4.50) id 1LMS6w-0003HK-UT for geh-help-gnu-emacs@m.gmane.org; Mon, 12 Jan 2009 20:06:07 +0100 Original-Received: from localhost ([127.0.0.1]:56091 helo=lists.gnu.org) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.43) id 1LMS5g-0003an-JI for geh-help-gnu-emacs@m.gmane.org; Mon, 12 Jan 2009 14:04:48 -0500 Original-Received: from mailman by lists.gnu.org with tmda-scanned (Exim 4.43) id 1LMS5K-0003Ym-6z for help-gnu-emacs@gnu.org; Mon, 12 Jan 2009 14:04:26 -0500 Original-Received: from exim by lists.gnu.org with spam-scanned (Exim 4.43) id 1LMS5I-0003Y1-7a for help-gnu-emacs@gnu.org; Mon, 12 Jan 2009 14:04:25 -0500 Original-Received: from [199.232.76.173] (port=33237 helo=monty-python.gnu.org) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.43) id 1LMS5I-0003Xy-3X for help-gnu-emacs@gnu.org; Mon, 12 Jan 2009 14:04:24 -0500 Original-Received: from mtaout6.012.net.il ([84.95.2.16]:35426) by monty-python.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.60) (envelope-from ) id 1LMS5H-00047J-IU for help-gnu-emacs@gnu.org; Mon, 12 Jan 2009 14:04:23 -0500 Original-Received: from conversion-daemon.i-mtaout6.012.net.il by i-mtaout6.012.net.il (HyperSendmail v2007.08) id <0KDD00400GPSV700@i-mtaout6.012.net.il> for help-gnu-emacs@gnu.org; Mon, 12 Jan 2009 21:03:58 +0200 (IST) Original-Received: from HOME-C4E4A596F7 ([77.126.141.155]) by i-mtaout6.012.net.il (HyperSendmail v2007.08) with ESMTPA id <0KDD00LSLGYLNUJ0@i-mtaout6.012.net.il> for help-gnu-emacs@gnu.org; Mon, 12 Jan 2009 21:03:58 +0200 (IST) In-reply-to: X-012-Sender: halo1@inter.net.il X-detected-operating-system: by monty-python.gnu.org: Solaris 10 (1203?) X-BeenThere: help-gnu-emacs@gnu.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.5 Precedence: list List-Id: Users list for the GNU Emacs text editor List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , Original-Sender: help-gnu-emacs-bounces+geh-help-gnu-emacs=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Errors-To: help-gnu-emacs-bounces+geh-help-gnu-emacs=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Xref: news.gmane.org gmane.emacs.help:61278 Archived-At: > From: Xah Lee > Date: Mon, 12 Jan 2009 05:56:51 -0800 (PST) > > it'd be much better if emacs adopted html as its standard doc format. Unless someone sets out to rewrite all the gazillion Emacs features in info.el and info-look.el to work with HTML, this ain't gonna happen, because those features are too useful to give up. > this wouldn't effect emacs much since emacs can and should still use > info doc in emacs as a integrated system. But down the road, say in 5 > years, emacs will need to deprecate texinfo eventually. The HTML/XHTML/ > CSS/JavaScript world is literally with few million more users and > developers. If you'd talk about XML or DocBook, I could perhaps believed you. But the formats you mention cannot replace Texinfo because they are not powerful enough to support features Texinfo has today, such as indexing, and don't have a macro system to express useful constructs such as @defun. Without these, it's a PITA to write any serious software documentation. We _could_ use HTML as an _output_ format (as opposed to source), which is what I was talking above (makeinfo supports HTML output for a very long time now). But to replace the source language with something else, that something else needs to be at least as powerful and convenient as Texinfo, and it needs tools to generated both printed and on-line docs from the same source. > In fact, i wouldn't be surprised that modern browser such as Firefox > actually load html doc faster than a comparative info file. Surprise me! give some measurements for a change. > Today, as far as i know, nobody bothered with info version of docs. "Nobody" is, of course, slightly exaggerated, as every GNU package has Info docs, which in practice means every important piece of software on a GNU/Linux machine is documented in Info.