> On Tue, 3 Apr 2001, Bram Moolenaar wrote:
> > > Most GNU packages have a texinfo manual instead. Manual pages are
> > > maintained by volunteers working separately.
> >
> > I don't understand why info pages are still used. Man pages are the
> > good-old way to document programs on Unix. Everybody knows how to use
> > them. HTML is everywhere these days and supports links, pictures, etc.
> > So why add yet another file format?
>
> Because the GNoids (to use a term a friend of mine invented) hated Unix
> and couldn't possibly use a Unix text format for their documentation.
> Since they were going to replace it all, there was no need to be compatible.
> This was back before HTML existed...
>
Quite a ways back. Info files go back to the early PDP-10/ITS/TECO days of
EMACS in the 1970s. They are the original plain-text hypertext document.
They are definitely more functional than man pages. When the GNU project
started, there was already a considerable corpus of Info files. Thus it is
not exactly an irrational choice for documentation. The fact that it's not
what people expect in Unix is, of course, another matter.
It's actually quite possible to "live" in EMACS. Aside from editing, it
has a shell window, which can be traversed using ordinary editing commands.
It has hooks into the compilers, so you can have a compilation window and
when errors occur it automatically pops you into another window with the
cursor sitting on the offending source-code line. It's a mail client, a
newsreader, and lots more, including a documentation browser. You can even
transfer files into and out of it with Kermit protocol :-)
Newcomers to Unix who don't remember when everything was text mode won't
appreciate any of this, but that's the background of Info files. By the
way, there's nothing special about them -- they're plain text and can
be treated just like man pages -- view them through "more". But then you
don't get the links or browsing features.
- Frank
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Linux-UTF8: i18n of Linux on all levels
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