Julia Evans
this feels like a silly thing to say but even though i’ve been using linux since 2004 I feel like i’m learning recently that the impact of the GNU project’s software (and its design decisions) on me is even bigger than I thought
like even just the fact that (afaik) many of them used Emacs has an impact on me today
(please no “it’s GNU/Linux”)
Janneke
@b0rk in '94 I used (sun's) db and a friend asked me why I didn't use gdb. It was such an amazingly different experience, the gdb ui seemed to be designed with care---dare I say love?---for an actual human (me!) using it.
I went to read all of gnu.org, the philosophy (empowering the user instead of keeping them ignorant), the coding standards (info instead of elitist manual pages, no arbitrary limits, etc ...) and decided I wanted to be part of this.
The reason some of us prefer to say GNU/Linux is rooted in the idea that even people that have been using "Linux" for decades, may not have heard about GNU.
Julia Evans
anyway i’ve been thinking about how to understand the way “the terminal” works it feels really important to understand the cultural impact of specific programs or projects (like xterm, the GNU project, etc)
i think it’s something a lot of people are intuitively aware of just from using the terminal and noticing patterns
(5/?)
Julia Evans
also I didn’t realize that standardizing “—help” came from the GNU project, it makes me wonder if folks have proposed adding —help to programs that predated GNU (or are from a BSD project etc) and if so what that conversation looked like
I imagine it’s not always possible to do without breaking backwards compatibility
(4/?)
Julia Evans
also this guidance on command line arguments is great, I didn’t realize these things came from the GNU project and I really appreciate them https://www.gnu.org/prep/standards/html_node/Command_002dLine-Interfaces.html#Command_002dLine-Interfaces
(via @zwol)
(3/?)
Julia Evans
for example I thought the “vim vs emacs” flamewars were silly (who cares? use what you want!)
but actually I feel like some of the GNU software design decisions are really influenced by emacs (readline, info pages) and that does actually have an effect
(please don’t tell me that readline has a vi mode)
(2/?)
Janneke
https://www.gnu.org/prep/standards/html_node/GNU-Manuals.html#GNU-Manuals
"GNU Manuals
The preferred document format for the GNU system is the Texinfo formatting language. Every GNU package should (ideally) have documentation in Texinfo both for reference and for learners."
Info manuals usually have a philosophy section, an introduction, a tutorial and describe the relationship of the software with other softwares. Some manual pages nowadays also give examples, but in the 90s the main feature of a man page, as I experienced it as a newbie, was terseness with no regard for (dare I say a elitist disregard?) for learners like myself.
Julia Evans
@janneke oh interesting what do you mean when you say man pages are elitist?
Janneke
@b0rk Just imagine how amazing it would have been if there would have been an info manual for Linux and for git?
Janneke
@b0rk yeah, the info experience outside of emacs is pretty terrible. I believe there was a short period where GNOME/Yelp would seamlessly present info pages.
Info manuals tell a story, for power users and learners alike. Link between different concepts. Usually have a tutorial. All of that is missing, for example--not wanting to single out one non-gnu project-- in an avalanche of manual pages.
If you want to learn about Linux (the kernel), wouldn't it be amazing if there was a manual for that? There is one for the Hurd.
Julia Evans
@janneke I mean I spent 20 years using Linux every day without even realizing that info pages existed (beyond maybe once when I tried to use the `info` viewer and gave up instantly) so it's hard for me to personally relate to the idea that more info pages would have been helpful
Janneke
@luis_in_brief @b0rk because info tells a story, has an introduction, and explicitly includes learners as their audience. Whereas man pages (at least in the 90s) attempted to not spend a single character too many?
Luis Villa
@janneke @b0rk I think bork is asking a different question: why would info have been better? it’s been a loooooong time since I was a power user of either, but I remember finding info very frustrating. And I was a regular emacs user at the time so I should have known most of the shortcuts! So I’m not clear why it would have been amazing if there were info for git.
Janneke
@b0rk we have been living in mostly different bubbles.
When I read "We will use Emacs as our editor" and I realized that was the single one statement that I had a problem with (being a happy VI user for some years), it occurred to me that this was probably caused by a problem with my perspective.
I then spent three summers to try to learn Emacs. That's some 25y ago. I can't say whether it was having context aware info pages with just a keystroke away next to your program text, being able to copy stuff without even having to glance at your mouse. Or whether it was the automagial (re-)indentation of code. Or something like the debian-changelog-mode when creating a Debian package.
Together with a friend I went to create GNU LilyPond which was often praised because of its documentation. I now hear similar praise about our Guix manual.
Julia Evans
@janneke I'm glad to hear that info pages were helpful to you! I think you're the one of the first people I've heard say that and it's interesting to hear what your experience has been like
Janneke
@b0rk I found that I had to implement a simple, #bootstrappable C library for my GNU Mes project. The glibc info pages would explain things about libc functions and give hints, for example when better to use another function, where the man page would just list the return values and the parameters.
Janneke
@b0rk thank you! It's all generated from [tex]info and is thus (mostly) also browsable offline as info pages.
If only the #GNU project would have taken this up, have improved and standardized it. Twenty years ago.
Julia Evans
@janneke that's awesome, the LilyPond website looks really clear!
Janneke
@b0rk of course, especially at the time, the (projected) LilyPond user base included musicians rather than programmers.
Janneke
@b0rk that seems useful (unless maybe when you're running a shell inside de Emacs, you prolly don't want a GUI browser to spawn, bt that's details).
Which reminds me, I believe there was a proposal to add up, previous, next semantics to html and it got rejected.
One of the amazing things about info (esp in emacs) is that you can read the whole document just by hitting the space bar. For, next screen and next section alike. No such thing exists in web browsers today. Similarly you isearch or regexp-search, go to node, jump to index entries. Once you're used to it, using HTML documentation becomes terribly cumbersomenin comparison.
Julia Evans
@janneke I've been appreciating the fish shell's approach to documentation recently, where `help THING` opens an HTML manual page (stored locally) in a browser.
Alexandre Oliva
GNU/Gabi
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