Re: [Groff] Status of the portability work, and plans for the future

[Jon Snader]

On Tue, Jan 09, 2007 at 02:26:38PM -0500, Eric S. Raymond wrote:
> >                             For me, and I think many others,
> > getting a man page in an editor window does make sense and I
> > wouldn't want to lose that ability. 
> 
> I agreed with you about this last time.  I still don't see how it's 
> relevant to the question of man's default behavior.  I readily concede
> that I like M-x man in some circumstances -- but what in the heck does
> that have to do with what happens when I type 'man foo' in an xterm?
> 
> To put it more directly: suppose man went to using a browser as
> a default when you call it from an xterm.  You seem to believe
> that implies M-x man going away.  Why do you believe that?
> 
> One of us is missing something basic here.

You're right, I think we're talking past each other.  My main
point is that there are *some* situations for at least some
people for which a traditionally rendered man page makes sense.
That doesn't mean that I object to having man foo invoke a
browser in some fashion.  My example (and main concern) was with
man pages in an editor, but that doesn't mean that other folks
have other situations in mind that you and I haven't thought of.

Thus, my real point is that each user should be able to configure
things to his own liking.  If Gunnar wants to look at nroff
rendered man pages in an xterm, who are we to say he shouldn't?
I'm fine with having man foo launch a browser by default, but
there's really no reason (other than increasingly cheap hard disk
space) why someone can't set an environment variable or config
file item and get the traditional behavior.  If someone wants to
use w3m and emacs to read man pages rendered with HTML that's
fine; if someone else wants to use Vim K and the traditional man
pages, that fine too.

Just to demonstrate that I'm not stuck in the eighties, but
actually much farther back, I'll simply repeat the mantra,
``Different strokes for different folks.''  Most folks will
probably prefer what you're suggesting, but it doesn't cost
anything to support those who disagree.

And just to be clear:

  (1) I'm not saying that man in an xterm is preferable to man in
  a browser, only that someone else may think so.

  (2) I don't think you're taking the position that everyone
  should have to live with what you're suggesting.  I think that
  we've both focused on the parts of our respective posts that we
  disagreed with (because, after all, that's the interesting part)
  rather on the vast majority that we do agree on.

jcs