Re: On being web-friendly and why info must die

[David Kastrup]

"Eric S. Raymond" <address@hidden> writes:

> Christopher Allan Webber <address@hidden>:
>> I think changing things for emacs to make it more modern is good... when
>> it came to changing to a new DVCS, I agree with the move to git Git; in
>> terms of usage, this is the clear winner.  But who is using asciidoc
>> these days?
>
> The Linux kernel, for one.  All their internal documentation and their webbed 
> documentation is mastered in asciidoc.

Example?

> Also true of the git project.

That is the only project of which I know it uses AsciiDoc, and it has
versioning problems, not able to use the current AsciiDoc version for
everything.

>> But a lot of this is cosmetic.  We could improve Texinfo to look much
>> better probably (and that would positively affect a lot of existing
>> GNU projects).
>
> But it would still be Texinfo, still be an essentially pointless
> barrier to learning how to contribute.

As opposed to AsciiDoc?  Really?

>> But I really do not understand the choice of asciidoc.  Could you
>> explain further your reasoning?
>
> I think (and I believe RMS agrees) that we need a master format that
> will (a) play nice with Web, and (b) attract new contributors rather
> than repelling them.
>
> The latter criterion argues strongly for a modern, leightweignt markup
> in general use outside the Emacs project.

Which rules out AsciiDoc.  It is in less use outside the Emacs project
than even Texinfo.

> What are the alternatives, really?  asciidoc.  rST. Sphinx.  Some
> flavor of markdown.

So if we don't have better alternatives, why not stick with what we
have?

> I think markdown is right out because of the death-of-a-thousand
> dialects problem it has.

AsciiDoc is not even compatible with its "canonical" implementation in
different versions.

-- 
David Kastrup