Re: Discussion on the structure and purpose of /info/dir

[Peter J. Farley III]

At 06:59 PM 3/5/02 +0200, Eli Zaretskii wrote:
>> Date: Tue, 05 Mar 2002 01:03:02 -0500
>> From: "Peter J. Farley III" <address@hidden>
>>
>> Aha!  Now I see why we disagree so much on this subject.  We have
>> exactly opposite methods of searching for information.  My method 
of
>> searching is to start at the most general first, if necessary 
weeding
>> through large swaths of useless chaff to decide how to get more
>> specific in my search criteria.
>
>This is very inefficient, in my experience, at least when using the
>index search.

But, as I just confirmed by trying it, index search does not work from 
the "/info/dir" screen, only when you are already inside one of the 
package info files.  I deduce from this that the index command only 
searches for an index in the current document.  I further deduce that 
the "--apropos" option is the mechanism that info uses to search all 
known documents for indices, and then searches each of those that it 
finds.  I now understand your estimate of the large amount of work it 
would take to provide an index for "/info/dir".  Hats off to the person 
who takes that task on.

<Snipped>
>> When I am searching a book (a reference book), I begin with the 
Table
>> of Contents, looking for chapter headings that might relate to the
>> information I need, then scanning down sub-chapter headings for 
more
>> detailed information, and then finally reading actual pages in the
>> subchapters to find the actual information.  I don't generally 
start
>> at the index in the back, since I usually don't know any of the
>> detailed specifics of the subject at hand.
>
>I never look at the TOC except if the index search fails (or there's
>no index).
>
>The way to search the index is to find a name for the issue you are
>looking for, then look up that issue in the index.
>
>The indexing in GNU manuals is designed for such searches.

I understand your technique, but some of us just aren't wired to work 
that way.  Yes we can learn it, but it's not our natural method.

<Snipped>
>> That is the kind of structure and content I would like to see in
>> "/info/dir", that would allow searchers to start at the most 
general
>> and work their way down to the most specific.
>
>IMHO, it won't work because the collection of GNU manuals lacks
>hierarchy, which is necessary for the kind of top-down search you are
>used to.

It is both possible and (IMHO) necessary to impose such structure, even 
if it doesn't currently exist.  There are definite and specific terms 
that can be used to categorize the various GNU utilities.  All I am 
asking is that texinfo develop and recommend those categories and 
functional categories as standards, and then work towards getting the 
community to agree that such categorization is useful and therefore 
worth the effort.  For any given GNU package, it is only a matter of a 
few extra lines of documentation, and most of those lines are already 
menu entries anyway, and only need to be copied.

For packages with many utilities like textutils or shellutils, the 
DJGPP "/info/dir" already provides the example of the kind of 
functional categorization I am promoting here.

Look, I don't think that I'm asking for a lot here.  Some definite 
recommendations in the texinfo documentation, some work (perhaps by 
someone like me who cares about it, perhaps by some package maintainers 
who can be convinced of the usefulness of the effort) on individual 
package texinfo files to add additional categories and entries, and 
*both* index-searchers like you and TOC searchers like me have 
something they can work with.

Neither solution is ideal, but isn't it all about approaching the ideal 
in increments?
---------------------------------------------------------
Peter J. Farley III (address@hidden)