Re: Gtk patch version 3, part 1

[Kim F. Storm]

"Robert J. Chassell" <address@hidden> writes:

>    > Yes.  If it is not on your machine, you may not be able to access it:
> 
>    Well if it is not on your machine -- you definitely cannot access it
>    without accessing the Internet.
> 
> That is false!  I do not access over the Internet most of the material
> that is not on my machine.  You must be living in a rich and different
> world!  Mostly, I get software and documentation from CDs.  It would
> take me over 500 hours to download the Debian CDs that I use.

The basic statement is not false!  If the document is not on your
machine, you cannot access it locally.  If I have to choose between
swapping CDs or visiting a URL, I'd choose the URL.  But if the file
you need is on a CD of yours, why didn't you install it locally in the
first place?

I'm arguing about files which ARE NOT AVAILABLE LOCALLY.

What's wrong about specifying a URL where you can access it?
As a user, you are free(!) to follow or ignore the URL.

> We must rely on `having a local file', meaning a file that is a part
> of a standard distribution, and either on a user's machine, or less
> conveniently, on a CD or other inexpensive transport media.

I fully agree that having an local, well-written info file is much
better than having to rely on a remote HTML or PDF document.

But in my experience, you cannot rely on any specific documentation to
be available locally -- unless you include that documentation as part
of your own software distribution -- and even in that case, there's no
guarantee that whoever puts your software into a distribution will
also include the docs....

> 
> This means that we must continue to write documentation and provide it
> to the user.
> 

Exactly!  The real issue is to write the necessary documentation and
include it in the emacs distribution.

Until that's done, I don't see what's wrong with supplying a URL
where you can find the  "best docs currently available" .

-- 
Kim F. Storm <address@hidden> http://www.cua.dk