> Date: Sat, 23 Jun 2012 15:07:38 +0200 > From: Patrice Dumas <pertu...@free.fr> > Cc: bug-gdb@gnu.org, k...@freefriends.org > > You missed my point. The manual is formatted fine, but since it uses an > undocummented Texinfo feature it is in a bad shape Texinfo-wise and the > formatting could change in the future, more or less drastically. > > > If you make such backwards incompatible changes in behavior, people > > will complain, and rightly so. > > Not rightly. Undocumented features should not be counted on.
But they are, all the time. Breaking that causes users to complain, and insisting on breaking them makes maintainers look unfriendly. > > How is an empty argument to @w any better than an empty @item? One > > day someone might even decide that such empty arguments to @w "don't > > make sense", and will produce a warning for that, too. > > Sure, unless the fact that an empty @item is wrong but an @item with an > empty @w{} is correct is documented in the manual, in which case it > becomes 'set in stone' that this is a correct construct. First, we should agree that one is "right" while the other is "wrong", and for that we need a good reason to reject the 'wrong" one. And second, documenting things rarely makes them "set in stone", because users have a habit of rejecting unreasonable (from their POV) restrictions, even if they are documented. > > A user-friendly tool lets users do whatever they want, so long as the > > result is to users' liking. If I learned anything from the days back > > when I was hacking makeinfo, it's that users will use the tools in > > every imaginable way and some unimaginable ones. Restricting them or > > annoying them with gratuitous messages, without a very good reason, is > > just annoyance. > > I interpret your point in the exact opposite direction. To me, the fact > that 'users will use the tools in every imaginable way and some > unimaginable ones' means that users should only have expectations on the > documented features, and that we may want to precise the right ways > at any time. This doesn't work in practice, and I hope Texinfo will not go that way. > If you look at the manual, the @top is in an @ifnottex block, but > the idea is that the rule about @contents should not depend on the > output format. If there's no good reason for a rule, it simply should not exist. _______________________________________________ bug-gdb mailing list bug-gdb@gnu.org https://lists.gnu.org/mailman/listinfo/bug-gdb