Subject: Re: [clisp-list] Seeking place for CLISP documentation

From: lin8080 <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed Mar 27 18:48:03 2002

Hallo

> Impnotes _is_ the correct place for all documentation about CLISP.

Oh, please.    Impnotes.html - 1.076.849 bytes.

This is not a handy size for online use. Next year it go up to 1,2 mb.
Hmmm

stefan

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From: Peter Wood <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed Mar 27 21:32:28 2002

> This is not a handy size for online use. Next year it go up to 1,2 mb.

I agree, furthermore ...

(warn :rant)
I advocate the use of plain text for documentation:

1) Plain text documentation is better than none.  
2) You won't get more portable than plain text.  
3) People don't have to *waste their time* on ugly, complex systems
   which are completely irrelevant to what they are trying to do,
   which is communicate.
4) XML, Latex, etc, etc are for *publishers*
5) Plain text is for when it is *important* that people can understand
   you.  
6) Plain text is infinitely manipulable.  
7) Any modern editor can move around plain text at least as usefully,
   quickly and meaningfully, as a browser can do so in some ugly markup.

The 'downside' to plain text is:

1) People who want a pretty surface won't read it. f**k them.
2) Bosses like pretty surfaces.  So what, this is free
   software. ditto.
(warn)

Joerg still needs somewhere to put his docs, no matter what format he
chooses. 

Regards,
Peter

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From: Paolo Amoroso <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu Mar 28 07:40:05 2002

> I advocate the use of plain text for documentation:

You can easily generate a plain text version of the CLISP impnotes with the
Lynx browser.

Paolo
-- 
EncyCMUCLopedia * Extensive collection of CMU Common Lisp documentation
http://www.paoloamoroso.it/ency/README
[http://cvs2.cons.org:8000/cmucl/doc/EncyCMUCLopedia/]

---

From: Will Newton <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu Mar 28 08:02:07 2002

> I advocate the use of plain text for documentation:

But then we have to decide whether to use UNIX style text, MSDOS style text 
or MacOS style text!

Really, text is not great for documentation - it has no page breaks, so is 
not great to print, it can contain no images to help explain concepts, it has 
no formatting so text is dense and hard to navigate.

DocBook is OK, but is a pain to use. I would reccomend Latex if you are 
trying to produce something like a manual. For a simple note or README plain 
text is fine though.

---

From: Sam Steingold <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu Mar 28 16:04:15 2002

> * In message <[email-masked]>
> * On the subject of "Re: [clisp-list] Seeking place for CLISP documentation"
> * Sent on Thu, 28 Mar 2002 01:11:45 +0100
> * Honorable lin8080 <[email-masked]> writes:
>

are you aware of <http://clisp.cons.org/impnotes/>?

CLISP documentation should go with CLISP documentation.

-- 
Sam Steingold (http://www.podval.org/~sds) running RedHat7.2 GNU/Linux
Keep Jerusalem united! <http://www.onejerusalem.org/Petition.asp>
Read, think and remember! <http://www.iris.org.il> <http://www.memri.org/>
If I had known that it was harmless, I would have killed it myself.