[TUHS] earliest Unix roff

arnold at skeeve.com arnold at skeeve.com
Wed Sep 18 01:03:41 AEST 2019


Yes, I think the next time anyone says anything about markup languages,
I'll just use private mail.

Thanks,

Arnold

Clem Cole <clemc at ccc.com> wrote:

> Fair enough.  Mei culpa from one of those that was vocal.  That said, maybe
> a trick is to stay away from texinfo/info and the man page discussion on
> this list since its a hot button that causes much trama for some with a
> more traditional UNIX view.
>
> Please don't leave, your voice is important and I generally agree with you
> and always like to hear you out.  But even if I do not agree, I still want
> to listen.  You have come to your conclusions in a different manner than
> some of us, and where each of us puts the MSB tends to color our views.
> Diversity of opinion is a good thing.
>
> Respectfully,
> Clem
>>
> On Tue, Sep 17, 2019 at 3:53 AM <arnold at skeeve.com> wrote:
>
> > It is like clockwork.
> >
> > Whenever I say something about Texinfo *as a markup language* for use
> > in *writing books*, the discussion inevitably degenerates into a hate
> > rant against Info and RMS's (failed) attempt to replace man pages.
> > Totally missing the point too.
> >
> > This is a trend on TUHS.  The same discussions, the same rants, often
> > the same misinformation, over and over and over again.
> >
> > I start to wonder if I should continue to subscribe.
> >
> > Arnold
> >
> > Larry McVoy <lm at mcvoy.com> wrote:
> >
> > > On Mon, Sep 16, 2019 at 08:10:48AM -0400, Clem Cole wrote:
> > > > On Mon, Sep 16, 2019 at 1:52 AM <arnold at skeeve.com> wrote:
> > > >
> > > > > I use the standalone Info reader (named info) if I want to look at
> > the
> > > > > Info output.
> > > > >
> > > > Fair enough, but be careful, while I admit I have not looked in a
> > while,
> > > > info(gnu) relies on emacs keybindings and a number of very emacs'ish
> > things.
> > > > Every time I have tried to deal with it, I have unprogram my fingers
> > and
> > > > reset them to emacs.
> > > >
> > > > If it would have used more(1) [or even less(1)] then I would not be as
> > > > annoyed.
> > > > Unix had fine tools [man(1), more(1), et al] and rms and friends felt
> > the
> > > > need to replace them with ITS-like programs.
> > >
> > > I hate texinfo and friends.  I get why it is better than man, but man was
> > > good enough, more than good enough, and the GNU project took everything
> > > it could find and destroyed the man pages.
> > >
> > > If you have something like perl that needs a zillion sub pages, info
> > > makes sense.  For just a man page, info is horrible.
> >


More information about the TUHS mailing list