Re: What is the need for @node and @menu?

[Annamalai Gurusami]

On 6/24/05, Karl Berry <address@hidden> wrote:

I am glad that someone read my mail and had thought the same way
that I do initially!  Thanks for your response.

> Indeed, I suggested some years ago that @node be made optional.  rms
> rejected the idea, because he felt node names should often be different
> than section names, for brevity in the online versions.  I'm not sure
> about that, but didn't think it was worth the time to argue further.
> 
> (It is also far from trivial to implement.)

If the only need for @node was to give a different (and most often short)
name to a @section or @subsection or @subsubsection or a @chapter, 
for the online version of the document, it can simply be achieved with
an optional argument to @section, @subsection, etc.

> I don't worry about the menus or the top node.  They can be created (and
> updated) automatically by various commands in the Emacs texinfo-mode, as
> explained in the documentation.

Thats exactly my point.  Since it can be generated *automatically* by
GNU Emacs, it suggests that the author of a documentation (or book) 
do not _ever_ need to write it.  That is, instead of the editor doing it, the
compiler (or translator texi2dvi) can do it.  

Anyway, I will leave it at this.  I can learn it the way it is currently.  Not
a big problem.  I just had this thought while reading the book, and so 
I wrote it down.  I appreciate your response (very much because I
initially thought that my suggestion/idea was not worth a response).

Thank you.

Rgds,
anna

-- 
After a quarrel, a wife said to her husband, "You know, I was a fool
when I married you."  The husband replied, "Yes, dear, but I was in
love and didn't notice."