Subject: Re: bug#2975: texinfo-master-menu and emacs.texi

From: Eli Zaretskii <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 08 Dec 2011 07:20:39 -0500

> From: Štěpán Němec <[email-masked]>
> Cc: "Roland Winkler" <[email-masked]>,  [email-masked]
> Date: Thu, 08 Dec 2011 11:38:01 +0100
> 
> On Thu, 08 Dec 2011 07:17:40 +0100
> Eli Zaretskii wrote:
> 
> >> > Maybe the better course here is to deprecate it, seeing how noone seems
> >> > interested in fixing it (if it can be fixed).
> >
> > Define "fixed".  Which of the current misfeatures are urgent to fix?
> 
> I'd say the fact that OT1H `texinfo-master-menu' is recommended as "the
> primary command" in the Texinfo manual (info "(texinfo)Updating Commands"),
> and OTOH it (sometimes?) breaks things, is a rather urgent-to-be-fixed
> misfeature.

The simplest fix would be to remove the updating of the @node lines.
Would anyone object?  Karl?

> I think it's very important that there is a clear recipe for maintaining
> Texinfo documentation which people not interested in the details or
> implementation of Texinfo (== the vast majority of Texinfo writers) can
> easily find and go by.

That is a separate and non-trivial project.  Texinfo Mode has a lot of
commands, some of which cater to specific workflows and organizations
of manuals.  Making a coherent set of instructions for people who are
"not interested in the details" is not an easy task.  It certainly
doesn't affect only Emacs.

However, since this discussion _is_ in the context of Emacs, let me
say this: FWIW, most changes I do in the Emacs docs do not justify
using any of the commands discussed in this bug report and in the
parallel thread on emacs-devel.  I just make the changes by hand.  I
believe others do that as well.  There are rare situations when I use
the commands discussed here, typically close to a release when there's
a need to make sure every menu is up to date.  E.g., I didn't even
remember the existence of texinfo-multiple-files-update until I bumped
into a comment in emacs.texi, although I myself added that comment
several years ago.

I guess I'm saying that the importance of these commands in the
context of maintaining Emacs documentation is somewhat exaggerated in
this thread, to say the least ;-)