Re: rethinking @def*

[Werner LEMBERG]

> I agree that some users won't be happy with the changes in
> formatting.  But, in that case, I think that this is less
> problematic than keeping unclear semantics and strange formatting as
> it is now.

I beg to differ, but now you know that already :-)

> Another possibility would be to change first the documentation,
> [...]

Hmm.

> But I do not think that the users will change anything before the
> formatting is actually changed anyway.

Exactly.

> We (I) could also propose too help and volunteer to change the
> manuals to accompany the change.  Maybe advertise it on some GNU
> lists, in addition to the help-texinfo list.

While this shows good intentions, it certainly fails in the long run.
There are simply too many manuals in the wild, and not everybody
contacts the 'bug-texinfo' mailing list if problems appear.  A more
likely outcome is that people will use such a backward incompatibility
as a welcome excuse to change their documentation system to something
'more modern'.


    Werner