Re: [bug #43042] Texinfo manual typo and improvement in info node 'Node Line Requirements'

[Karl Berry]

    The idea was that users had complete control over menu formatting such
    that they could put the amount of space they want in particular to align
    entries any way they want.

I know that's the stated theory.  But I have never seen any real
document play around with spacing in menus' node names for the sake of
formatting -- with the other menu parts, yes, but not node names.

I am 99.9% sure that Bob's statement in the manual, and the original
implementations, were a result of accident/convenience, not because
Bob/Brian/rms explicitly decided "we must leave spaces alone in a menu's
node names, even though we're collapsing spaces in node names everywhere
else".  (That's useful; no one puts xrefs into @example's so that
doesn't matter.  In principle, I'd argue they should be normalized there
too, anyway.)

    My opinion is that the reader should normalize the node names in any
    situation (cross refs, menus, node lines) where a node name appears.

Well, since we haven't normalized node names in menus to date, readers
have to do that to be compatible anyway.  Or authors have to fix their
documents.  So I guess it's not worth thinking about further.

best,
karl