Re: writing man pages or texinfo documentation
On Tue, 25 May 1999, Adam Sampson wrote:
> Info isn't exactly ideal. Why not use a different solution, as we're
> starting over?
Yes. If it's supposed to be a NEW system, why repeat the past? Even if it
is just placeholder, people will expect it to be there and that will just
make it harder to move away from when we decide "cool, let's innovate!"
> As everybody knows how to use "The Web", why not use SGML as the "standard"
> documentation format? That way, we can convert to HTML for interactive
> info-style viewing using Lynx, Netscape or another browser of choice (or for
> Web publishing, obviously), we can produce a printable version, and we can
> produce a flat-text version that "man" could show using a pager.
I agree. Wholeheartedly. Although I probably would've suggested HTML.
(Because of my ignorance [What's SGML?])
I like the idea of reading documentation via lynx, which is well
established and just plain cool. Plus, the HTML leaves room to do nicer
formatting for the manual, and even (gasp) introduce modern topics such as
color and pictures! :) That is.. if it plans on being used outside of
a basic text output environment.
I also like the idea of easily centralizing such a thing and leaving it on
a web server residing at, for example manual.cyberdyne.net . Out of all
of the things that a web server can send back to the browser, it'll
probably understand HTML with the least difficulty.
Yea, fine, lynx lacks some features, but I can tell you right now I'm not
going to sit down and try to figure out "yet another text presentation
scheme" like info just to read documentation. Especially if the investment
of time will only benefit me on the GNU system. I'm not the only one.
--Michael Bacarella
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