Re: New LilyPond website

[Paul]

Hi Carl,

On 12/01/2016 12:44 PM, Carl Sorensen wrote:
> One thing that is note mentioned in your quote is that texinfo separates
> semantics from appearance.  It is this precise separation that allows one
> to make big but consistent changes in the appearance of the website with
> changes in the CSS.  I'm a firm believer in the principle of separating
> semantics from presentation (and we do that with LilyPond, by the way,
> which is one of its strengths IMO).

I totally agree about the value of separating semantics and appearance.  
Using texinfo does enforce that in a strict way, although well-written 
HTML also follows this principle.  HTML for content and CSS for style. 
(E.g. one could just write directly the HTML that is generated from 
texinfo.)  Maybe I'm missing something or maybe the strict enforcement 
is the point?  At any rate, my intention is not to engage in argument or 
advocate for anything.

> I don't think that there is any need for the website to be available in
> pdf and info.  But IMO there is a huge need for the website to
> presentation to be auto-generated from a semantic text description.  I
> don't care how beautiful the new website is, if it requires a webmaster to
> continually update the pages (including in all of the languages we have),
> it's not a step forward.  It would be setting up the website for bitrot.

Agreed, keeping maintenance costs/effort down is really important.

> > Upgrading to the latest version of texi2any[0] and/or using Haunt would
> > help, but those are non-trivial endeavors.  The current setup certainly
> > introduces friction for website work, especially for those who are used
> > to working directly with HTML.
> I believe that we want to avoid working directly with HTML because of its
> mixture of semantics and presentation.

I just wish that working with texinfo (for the website) was more 
intuitive for contributors who know HTML but not texinfo.  For example, 
an HTML element with an id and also a number of classes, all used for 
styling it with CSS.  I don't know if you can generate that HTML element 
(with both id and classes) from texinfo with our current setup.  If so I 
haven't figured it out yet.  Maybe upgrading to the latest texi2any 
would help.  Maybe someday I'll have the time to work on it.

Cheers,
-Paul