Skip site navigation (1)Skip section navigation (2)
Date:      Sun, 18 May 1997 09:11:04 -0500 (EST)
From:      John Fieber <jfieber@indiana.edu>
To:        "Jordan K. Hubbard" <jkh@time.cdrom.com>
Cc:        Satoshi Asami <asami@FreeBSD.ORG>, cvs-committers@FreeBSD.ORG, cvs-all@FreeBSD.ORG, cvs-share@FreeBSD.ORG
Subject:   Re: cvs commit: src/share/doc/handbook handbook.sgml 
Message-ID:  <Pine.BSF.3.96.970518090131.2207J-100000@fallout.campusview.indiana.edu>
In-Reply-To: <28686.863929465@time.cdrom.com>

next in thread | previous in thread | raw e-mail | index | archive | help
On Sat, 17 May 1997, Jordan K. Hubbard wrote:

> Just another argument for automating this completely, as John Fieber
> talks about at least twice a year (as in "sure would be nice if...
> hint hint." :-)

Okay, what I've been batting around in my head is taking the
handbook out of the main source tree and maintaining it in the
web tree, or as a port-like entity.  Why?  Because the content of
the handbook covers multiple releases of FreeBSD.  Where there
are release specific aspects, they are (or should be) clearly
marked as such, but generally stuff added to the -current
handbook is also applicable to previous releases.  (Note: docbook
provides a much cleaner mechanism for specifying release
dependent information than the current linuxdoc does.)

Having it in the main tree forces it to be split up into the
various release branches which has proven counter productive. 
The general policy is to make all changes to -current, and at the
last minut before a release, merge everything back to the release
branch. Man pages, in contrast, are tightly integrated with
specific pieces of software in the system so maintaining them in
parallel with the source code makes sense. 

My other motivation is that I'm chomping at the bit to switch to
jade for SGML processing.  But, being an anti-bloatist at heart I
cringe at the though of bringing this multi-megabyte package into
the main tree.  If the handbook/faq/tutorials are separate, they
can just depend on other ports (eg SP/Jade, TeX, etc.).

Thoughts?

-john




Want to link to this message? Use this URL: <https://mail-archive.FreeBSD.org/cgi/mid.cgi?Pine.BSF.3.96.970518090131.2207J-100000>