Re: Have you all gone crazy? Was: On being web-friendly and why info must die

[Eli Zaretskii]

> From: "Stephen J. Turnbull" <address@hidden>
> Cc: address@hidden,
>     address@hidden,
>     address@hidden,
>     address@hidden,
>     address@hidden
> Date: Wed, 24 Dec 2014 11:58:16 +0900
> 
>  > > Paul is on the side of the angels, he just wants to add a new useful
>  > > tool (web search)
>  > 
>  > That's a no-brainer.
> 
> Apparently the word "just" was not.  Despite his disclaimers, you took
> his post as a deprecation of manuals in Info format.

Yes.  And I stand by that interpretation.

>  > No one said anything to the contrary, so there's no need to argue
>  > with that non-existing argument.
> 
> Please slow down, Eli.  Nobody said there was an argument with that.
> My intention was to imply that you seem to be misinterpreting his post
> which was intended to say that, and not intended to say that web search
> should *replace* Info indexes.

Based on what Paul wrote since then (cf. "inferior technology"), I
think my interpretation was not a mistake.

>  > Web search is a valuable tool when you want to expand on the
>  > information you found in the manuals.  However, for information
>  > that is in the manuals, Info is usually faster and more accurate.
> 
> "Nobody said anything to the contrary, so why are you arguing with
> that nonexistent argument?"

Because someone did say that.  Several someone's, in fact.

> Some people are arguing that for them and for people like them Emacs
> manuals at present do *not* have the necessary information indexed,
> and that therefore web search is a relatively cheap way to improve
> access to information about Emacs.  A few deprecate Info manuals[1],
> it's true, but surely Paul doesn't.

I have no argument with those "some" (and actually did some work
yesterday to improve on that), but violently disagree with those
"few".  I don't think I've misinterpreted to which group Paul belongs,
but that doesn't really matter, as my problem is with the views of
those "few", not with them personally.