[Gllug] Open source == 'Popular Computing'

[Peter Corlett]

On Mon, Apr 20, 2009 at 11:40:05AM +0100, Alain Williams wrote:
> On Mon, Apr 20, 2009 at 11:38:42AM +0100, James Laver wrote:
>> Some of them do have info pages. Your distribution of choice probably
>> elects not to install them. When the info page is missing, one is
>> converted automatically from a manpage. Hence being the same.
> Info was one of these great ideas that just did not work.

Info was one of those great ideas that they never bothered to finish,
basically. They applied 90% inspiration and 10% perspiration.

The stand-alone curses-based info reader is very rudimentary, with key
bindings selected to infuriate vi users because they're like Emacs, and
Emacs users because it's not enough like Emacs. Searching is really painful.

Generating a print version of the documentation involves a rather nasty set
of TeX macros and other hoops to jump through, and I never did figure out
how to get it to use anything other than the hideous Computer Modern fonts
before throwing it away in disgust.

And let's not talk about the HTML rendering. 1995 called, and they want
their web design and usability back.

On the other hand, is there even another solution in this problem space?

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