> Since back then --no-headers lacked
> features which would allow you to produce plain ASCII versions of a
> complete document, that default made a lot of sense.
I disagree. I agree that --no-headers was needed, and that having ascii
output was and is valuable. I do not agree that confusing this with where
the output went was ever a reasonable design.
> Nowadays, the missing features are mostly there, but I'm not sure it's
> a good idea to break back compatibility. Personally, I always invoke
> makeinfo with a -o switch, no matter what the output format is.
I agree that backward compatibility is important, but the problem with this
argument is that it can be carried forward forever, and you never get to fix
these things. As we are seeing, this creates continuing problems for tool
evolution. As an immediate example, if the HTML output is being split into
multiple files, then --no-headers is something I want to be able to say in
order to suppress the node labeling (which is what it is *documented* to
do). Unfortunately, I can't use it this way, because it has this annoying
side effect on where the output goes...
If you really think it is a problem, then do it in two phases:
1) In the next release, add --stdout or make "--output -" send output to
stdout. Inform people that the broken behaviour of --no-headers will cease
in the subsequent release.
2) In the subsequent release, separate the two behaviors completely.
Jonathan
