[gentoo-user] Re: Gentoo's advantage: 'optimized for your system' -- huh?

[Harry Putnam]

Grant Edwards <grante@××××.com> writes:

>> The cynic in me says that it's because Tim Berners-Lee
>> invented HTML, not Richard M Stallman.
>
> Info has been around a lot longer than HTML, but I think you're
> largely correct.

There is entirely to much made of RMS.  I don't know him personally
and just a tiny bit from direct correspondence (beginning on an
emacs.help list) on several occasions.

I found Richard to be responsive and helpful.  He cuts right to the
chase and lays out the problem.  On the other hand, I'm no emacs
developer or even a very skilled user.   But yrs of emacs use has
taught me that the tools RMS has participated in are serious tools and
well developed always heavy on documentation.

Emacs has very good documentation in a variety of places and formats.

But getting to the point about `info'.  The texinfo format is an
excellent one for handling text only documentation.  The hyperlinking
makes it easy to jump around in large documents.

I recommend that people use emacs to read `info'.  They work really well
together and the vast arsenal of search and other tools in emacs are
brought to bare in `info' reading.  Once you used emacs for `info'
reading the standalone `Info' reader will seem pretty primitive.

One of the major advantages of `info' is that things like the bash
manual are indexed allowing an `i'  index search for most things.

Inside emacs you press `C-h i' to get to the base list of `info'
documentation... then press:
   `m' (which prompts you for a menu item),
    type in `bash <enter>' (to get to the bash table of contents)
    (replace bash with NAME as needed, of course).

Once inside the bash documentation you have a variety of tools at your
disposal including emacs bookmarks.

The `i' index search that finds things in the index and takes you to
the concomitant sections is accompanied by the `s' search which
searches the entire bash document for a regex.  As well as the always
useful `incremental search' for searching individual pages.

Once you've mastered the navigation commands it is (almost) a pleasure
to read documentation in `info' using emacs.

Any subject referred to in the documentation is usually hyperlinked so
you can review it instantly... then press `l' to return to the main
documentation (or last place you were reading)

There is also a whole mode for editing `info' documents... probably
not so useful for reading up on a command but can be really helpful if
you want to leave your own notes in there somewhere.  Possibly the
examples you've figured out.