To: djgpp AT sun DOT soe DOT clarkson DOT edu
From: Stuart Herbert <S DOT Herbert AT sheffield DOT ac DOT uk>
Date: 23 Mar 94 15:28:01
Subject: Re: Info port to DJGPP

> I hear this criticism a lot.  I'm not a big fan of GNU's Info, but I
> don't see how one can escape being forced to choose which features
> your full-text help system will support.  That means that you can't
> have everything.  Is there an alternative that allows creation of both
> typeset and ascii documents from the same source, using freely
> available tools; has a free, portable reader that works from any
> terminal; supports non-linear documents (linked subjects); and
> full-text, regular-expression searching?

No.  But none of that is important to me.  For programming information,
I find dumping ascii output to the printer to be more than adequate.
With a hierarchical menu structure, I find that I can normally locate
something very quickly if I don't already know what it is I am looking
for.  As for free, I've written my own tools :) but they're not portable.
Because I don't need them to be.  On unix, I'd just install the stuff as
man pages.  For DOS, I wrote my own clone of man.

> I think these are the correct priorities for a help system with GNU's
> scope.  It's too bad the limitations make it less pleasant and less
> accessible to most users, as you pointed out.

:)  At the end of the day, its a matter of preference.  All credit should
be given to the FSF, for providing *something*.  That's better than nothing
at all.  What I am saying is that what they've provided doesn't address
*my* needs.  (This isn't meant to be a flame war :)

Stuart