From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Path: main.gmane.org!not-for-mail From: Eli Zaretskii Newsgroups: gmane.emacs.devel Subject: Re: Documentation for "Clone Buffers" (corrected version) Date: 21 Mar 2004 08:28:32 +0200 Sender: emacs-devel-bounces+emacs-devel=quimby.gnus.org@gnu.org Message-ID: References: <200403201415.i2KEFNq19043@f7.net> <7494-Sat20Mar2004171547+0200-eliz@elta.co.il> Reply-To: Eli Zaretskii NNTP-Posting-Host: deer.gmane.org X-Trace: sea.gmane.org 1079850464 27023 80.91.224.253 (21 Mar 2004 06:27:44 GMT) X-Complaints-To: usenet@sea.gmane.org NNTP-Posting-Date: Sun, 21 Mar 2004 06:27:44 +0000 (UTC) Cc: juri@jurta.org, emacs-devel@gnu.org, karl@freefriends.org Original-X-From: emacs-devel-bounces+emacs-devel=quimby.gnus.org@gnu.org Sun Mar 21 07:27:40 2004 Return-path: Original-Received: from quimby.gnus.org ([80.91.224.244]) by deer.gmane.org with esmtp (Exim 3.35 #1 (Debian)) id 1B4wQu-0003JQ-00 for ; Sun, 21 Mar 2004 07:27:40 +0100 Original-Received: from monty-python.gnu.org ([199.232.76.173]) by quimby.gnus.org with esmtp (Exim 3.35 #1 (Debian)) id 1B4wQu-0007w9-00 for ; Sun, 21 Mar 2004 07:27:40 +0100 Original-Received: from localhost ([127.0.0.1] helo=monty-python.gnu.org) by monty-python.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.30) id 1B4wQ9-0006EV-Kr for emacs-devel@quimby.gnus.org; Sun, 21 Mar 2004 01:26:53 -0500 Original-Received: from list by monty-python.gnu.org with tmda-scanned (Exim 4.30) id 1B4wQ1-0006EI-IY for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Sun, 21 Mar 2004 01:26:45 -0500 Original-Received: from mail by monty-python.gnu.org with spam-scanned (Exim 4.30) id 1B4wPU-0005jc-UG for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Sun, 21 Mar 2004 01:26:44 -0500 Original-Received: from [207.232.27.5] (helo=WST0054) by monty-python.gnu.org with asmtp (Exim 4.30) id 1B4wPU-0005Yw-BC; Sun, 21 Mar 2004 01:26:12 -0500 Original-To: rms@gnu.org In-reply-to: (message from Richard Stallman on Sun, 21 Mar 2004 00:00:31 -0500) X-BeenThere: emacs-devel@gnu.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.4 Precedence: list List-Id: "Emacs development discussions." List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , Errors-To: emacs-devel-bounces+emacs-devel=quimby.gnus.org@gnu.org Xref: main.gmane.org gmane.emacs.devel:20674 X-Report-Spam: http://spam.gmane.org/gmane.emacs.devel:20674 > From: Richard Stallman > Date: Sun, 21 Mar 2004 00:00:31 -0500 > > If you refer to additional libraries, I think a programmer has a good > knowledge in what library each function lives. After all, it's the > same programmer who needs to add a -lFOO switch to the link command > line. > > Not necessarily. Maybe she didn't write the code. Maybe she is looking > for the docs for a function because she doesn't know what it does. The same could happen with man pages, and yet several people in this thread seem to say that man pages should serve as a model for the new features we are discussing. > If she has to specify the library name to find the function, > she might as well just browse and find that library's manual. Browsing a manual requires to know Info commands, while getting to the required section directly does not. So "info libc strcpy" is more convenient than "info" followed by the commands to descend from DIR to the libc manual, from there to the Index node, and finally looking for strcpy. Compare that with man pages: one could always start with the Intro page, then follow the references from there. However, getting to the right page directly is more convenient. (In the Info case, browsing is more complicated because Info manuals have multi-level structure while man pages have only 2 levels.) > The goal of this discussion is to design a more convenient > alternative. In my experience, many Info users are unaware of Info features that make their lives significantly easier. How many users know about the "--usage" or "--apropos" options? I'm quite sure that something like "info libc strcpy" is something many users don't know about. So to have a fruitful discussion, I think we need to consider available features, before we decide on the possible improvements.