Re: Org mode and Emacs

[Werner LEMBERG]

> Why replace Texinfo?  Because it has some tricky syntax which it
> inherits directly from TeX.  And some syntax which is cumbersome,
> again imposed directly by TeX.

Well, the thing is backward compatibility – for the sake of the GNU
project.  If Texinfo was allowed to drop that (in particular, the many
unfortunate restrictions of the `.info` file format), everything would
be much easier.

> Nowadays nobody can maintain the TeX-based part which is used to
> generate printed manuals.

How do you come to this conclusion?  `texinfo.tex` is actively
maintained, and bug reports (which I submitted a lot) are usually
fixed within days.

Of course, there are some areas where more development would be
desirable (in particular, a better font interface based on ideas from
LaTeX).  On the other hand, the next Texinfo version will contain a
converter from Texinfo source to LaTeX source, which should help
overcome (at least some of) the font problems.

> (In the Info version of the file, the title of the node for @code is
> actually formatted wrong.  It has single quotes around `@code' in
> the title itself.  Texinfo does have some problems that need fixing,
> and it is hard to fix anything in it.)

I strongly suggest that you write to bug-texinfo, discussing this
issue and your other concerns.


    Werner