Stefan Reichör <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes: > Matthieu Moy <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes: > >> A few words about that will not harm, but the goal of xtla is I think >> not to repeat tla's documentation. > > Hm. You are absolutely right from the maintainers point of view > (duplication of documentation)
I was more talking about the user's point of view. I may have a particular philosophy here, but I think command line tools are much more pedagogical than GUI or Emacs interface. The interesting concepts are in tla itself. Xtla is just a more pleasant way to use it. I think that if people learn tla starting with a front-end, they'll feel their learning curve will grow quickly, but at the end, I'm not sure they'll lear so fast. If you look at PCL-CVS docstrings, I think they are an example to follow: ,----[ C-h f cvs-update RET ] | cvs-update is an interactive compiled Lisp function in `pcvs'. | (cvs-update DIRECTORY FLAGS) | | Run a `cvs update' in the current working DIRECTORY. ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ This is the important part. It gives you the link to the original tool. You can read the doc about cvs update somewhere else. | Feed the output to a *cvs* buffer and run `cvs-mode' on it. | With a prefix argument, prompt for a directory and cvs FLAGS to use. | A prefix arg >8 (ex: C-u C-u), | prevents reuse of an existing *cvs* buffer. `---- It reminds me of a collegue to whom I asked "What C compiler did you use at school" : "Err, I used F9". He didn't realize that the environment in which he was working was at the same time an editor and a compiler, and he didn't know which tool he was using. Just the key to press. OK, he could write his first C program faster than he would have done using vi and gcc, but then ? ... Well, that's my point of view, you may disagree, but I mean _I_ won't make efforts to make xtla useable without any knowledge about tla. I'll try to improve the docs to make a better link with tla's doc. > One idea is to use Lars Magne Ingebrigtsen's assistant.el to guide the > users through some diffcult steps. > > See: > - http://quimby.gnus.org/cgi-bin/cvsweb.cgi/gnus/lisp/assistant.el > - http://quimby.gnus.org/cgi-bin/cvsweb.cgi/gnus/etc/gnus/gnus-setup.ast > > What do you think about that idea? I had never heard about assistant.el, so, no opinion ;-) Seems interesting ... -- Matthieu
