[haiku] GRRR! [was: Re: Man]
- From: Oliver Tappe <zooey@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: haiku@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Tue, 31 Aug 2010 00:09:06 +0200
Hey guys,
could you all please step back down from your own personal soapbox?
I have asked a simple question: which format should we use for
console-based documentation?
It is rather obvious that once we have decided about the format, we will
make sure to provide a console-based application that can actually *show*
the info [and yes, in a bloody console!].
There might be other, additional ways to view the documentation, like in
Web+ or some other GUI app, but that's not part of the question.
It doesn't make much sense to invent a *new* format, since all the
documentation is already out there (usually in either man, info or html
format). A new format would mean that we'd have to convert all the existing
documentation to that. That's going to be much harder than converting all
the documentation to either man, info (gasp!) or html. For either of these,
there are tools available that just work, AFAICT.
Html is the format that bridges the gap between console/GUI best, and it is
clearly superior to man for it's navigability (just try out the
documentation for gcc and you'll see what I mean).
However, I've always found console based browsers a bit awkward. That's why
I'm asking: can we live with links (our console based browser, it seems) as
console-based documentation viewer? Is w3m (or any other browser) better
for that task?
cheers,
Oliver
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