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

[Phillip Lord]

David Kastrup <address@hidden> writes:

> Paul Eggert <address@hidden> writes:
>
>> Óscar Fuentes wrote:
>>
>>> Some formats (like Org) are "final", in the sense that the source text
>>> (the equivalent of *.texi) is intended for consumption (it is the *.info
>>> too, although not as pretty as some of its other representations such as
>>> HTML.) Failures on the structure are visible, links can be checked right
>>> away, etc.
>>
>> This is an advantage of Org mode over Texinfo.
>
> It's also a disadvantage since it means that one simple text-based
> output format has to contain the full information relevant for all other
> output formats.  Which causes visual clutter not relevant for the
> text-based output format.


The hope would be that this is kept to a minimum. For example, I am
writing a book (using latex) with both a HTML and PDF output. Most of
the conditional logic is in one place (in the prolog). I tried doing
this with org also; again most of the multi format stuff was at the
beginning of the file or in a lisp driver file.

In the end, I stopped using org, and moved to latex because I find that
the cross-referencing and bibliography facilities were better in auctex
than org.

> I have no idea what you mean by "Failures on the structure are visible"
> when one can only see the source text.

Org renders links clickable, and fontifies (and folds) based on the
document structure. If it's broken in the org source, the visual
presentation is also broken in org-mode.

Basically, org-mode is WYSIWIGish.

>> Besides, we need to be realistic: we don't have an army of
>> documentation developers and we're unlikely to gain one while our doc
>> tools are more awkward than they need to be.  If we stick with our
>> current development process this problem will likely just fester.
>
> Again: Texinfo is not a relevant hurdle.  Elisp is.
>
> Org most certainly would be a larger hurdle for me.

Well, lots of people here are saying that texinfo is a problem, even if
it is not for you.

Phil