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

[Phillip Lord]

Richard Stallman <address@hidden> writes:

> [[[ To any NSA and FBI agents reading my email: please consider    ]]]
> [[[ whether defending the US Constitution against all enemies,     ]]]
> [[[ foreign or domestic, requires you to follow Snowden's example. ]]]
>
>   > I find texinfo a fairly busy format because of all the menus and node
>   > information.
>
> I'm sorry you dislike it, but that information has to be specified
> in the manual source somehow.

No, it really doesn't.

>
>   > The semantics of navigation is not something that I care
>   > about as an author.
>
> I don't understand what change you have in mind.  What we document in
> the Texinfo manual is what you need to know to write that part of the
> manual.  You seem to think we could omit it, but I don't see how that
> could work.

Well, Eli says that this is a non-issue because Emacs can put it in
place with a few keypresses. Okay, well, why does Emacs have to do it?
Why does texinfo not do the job? 

Consider this snippet....

@node Abbrevs
@chapter Abbrevs

  A defined @dfn{abbrev} is a word which @dfn{expands}, if you insert
it, into some different text. 

@menu
* Abbrev Concepts::   Fundamentals of defined abbrevs.
* Defining Abbrevs::  Defining an abbrev, so it will expand when typed.
@end menu

@node Abbrev Concepts
@section Abbrev Concepts

  An @dfn{abbrev} is a word that has been defined to @dfn{expand} into
a specified @dfn{expansion}.


In org this would be:

* Abbrevs

A defined \abbrev\ is a word which \expands\, if you insert it into some
different text.

** Abbrev Concepts

An \abbrev\ is a word that has been defined to \expand\ into a
specificed \expansion\.


Now, I agree that the loss of semantics from @dfn is not good. But org
(or markdown or asciidoc or latex) can work out the navigation from the
document structure.

Phil