Re: [Groff] Status of the portability work, and plans for the future

[Gunnar Ritter]

"Eric S. Raymond" <address@hidden> wrote:

> Gunnar Ritter <address@hidden>:
> > Yes, and authors would also get nasty bug reports from
> > people who compile their manual pages with the switch
> > turned off because it is the default. This would be as
> > bad as gcc shipping with -Wall enabled by default.
>
> Only authors who didn't strict-validate their pages would get those
> reports -- which is exactly the effect we want, I think.

Then at the very least add some sort of /*LINTED*/ comment
that allows authors to turn off your warnings within the
manual page.

I still think it would be a bad decision, nevertheless. I
do not want a tool that tries to dictate all the world how
manual pages should be written. I would like a tool that
gives people advice _if_ they want to have that advice.

> > I know for sure that many people will prefer man output
> > on the console since they do not care about (a) to (d) but
> > about having quick access to informative texts.
>
> So tell me.  Exactly how much slower would it be if, when you
> typed "man foo", a browser popped up and displayed foo(n)
> in HTML?  

Huh? What world are you living on, Eric? In yours, people
like browser windows popping up, make no use of browser tabs,
and especially do not have their tabbed browser on another
virtual desktop than their xterm(s)? Sounds like a strange
mirror universe to me.

Ah, and I can predict to you, once people are waiting for
browser windows to pop up over ssh after they have typed
man, they will lynch you. Stay in good health.

        Gunnar