Subject: RE: bug#12187: 24.1.50; Regression: `Info-breadcrumbs-depth' should show `File:' without ".info" suffix

From: "Drew Adams" <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 13 Aug 2012 09:10:44 -0700

> > Eli, can you speak more of the advantage of showing the 
> > suffix?  E.g., are there cases where there might be more than
> > one manual with the same file name except for the suffix?
> 
> Yes, there could be more than one manual with the same name, however
> unlikely.  Not sure how important that is, though.

I would think that the suffix is not very important, and I have not heard
anything to the contrary.  If the user had access to two manuals in different
_locations_ but with the same name, then I can see an advantage in somehow
making the full file name evident.  (The file location is available in Emacs via
`pwd' etc.)

But I do not see an advantage in showing the suffix if there are two files in
the same location, one with suffix .info and the other without it. 

> > And could you elaborate on how this relates to other Info readers
> > and why it can be important to show the suffix?
> 
> What you see is simply the header line of every node, verbatim, as
> makeinfo generates it.  If you visit the Info file literally, that is
> what you will see there at the beginning of each node.  I don't think
> there's some deep philosophy here, just tradition and KISS, really.

I agree with Stefan - please elide the suffix in Emacs, at least.  That could be
done during rendering, if you do not think that makeinfo should do it generally.

>From an Emacs _user_ perspective this is a regression.  Whereas, before, `File:'
indicated only the manual, now it shows also a file-name suffix.

Arguments saying, in effect, "but that _is_ the file" would be logically the
same if Emacs suddenly started showing the full file name ("path") in that
field.

What is useful to users is the non-directory and non-suffix part of the file
name: "elisp".  Especially since the suffix has no special meaning: there are
not different Info-file suffixes with different meanings, AFAIK.  For users, the
suffix is noise.