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

[Ted Zlatanov]

On Mon, 08 Dec 2014 19:00:52 +0200 Eli Zaretskii <address@hidden> wrote: 

>> From: Ted Zlatanov <address@hidden>
>> Date: Mon, 08 Dec 2014 11:29:37 -0500
>> 
>> On Mon, 08 Dec 2014 18:08:26 +0200 Eli Zaretskii <address@hidden> wrote: 
>> 
EZ> What I had in mind was some evidence, even anecdotal one, that people
EZ> considered contributing a chunk of docs, but decided against that
EZ> because of Texinfo.
>> 
>> It's always been a nasty hurdle for me, discouraging me from writing new
>> stuff. I can never remember the syntax (I deal with Markdown and other
>> formats all day, and texinfo gets pushed out).

EZ> (Some of) the syntax gets taken care of by the various Texinfo mode
EZ> commands.  We could also add items to the menu, if that's useful.

It's just tedious stuff.  I get back into it after 15-30 minutes but
it's always a context switch.

>> and the index and all the other nonsense.

EZ> Indexing is part of the real effort -- it's a human activity for which
EZ> there's no automated replacement.  Like writing the text itself --
EZ> there's no alternative to doing that yourself, in any documentation
EZ> system.

I tend to prefer freeform tagging, but agree in general.

EZ> But I will offer you a deal: write plain ASCII, and I will add
EZ> markup.  Deal?

I was answering your earlier question about evidence.  Writing ASCII
docs and asking you to merge them is not fair to you.

On Mon, 8 Dec 2014 12:14:37 -0500 "Eric S. Raymond" <address@hidden> wrote: 

ESR> When I use terms like "ugly" and "heavyweight", misfeatures like the
ESR> duplication of structure in sections and nodes are part of what I have
ESR> in mind.

They are annoying, but not fundamentally broken.  You need something
like them, as Eli mentioned.

ESR> Ted is what's normal out there. It's the handful of people on this list
ESR> so used to Texinfo that it has worn grooves in their brains who are
ESR> the outliers.

Come on... no need for that.

Ted