Re: Question about the return value of 'local'

[Stefano Lattarini]

On 12/14/2012 06:58 PM, Bill Gradwohl wrote:
> My point was to DESIGN for html and the rich environment it offers, not to
> try to convert a Model T into a Mercedes.
> 
> I'm not wild about a wiki either, if its a free for all. If on the other
> hand, it is a submission platform that gets reviewed and edited by the
> developers then it's possibly of benefit, especially for examples.
> 
> The best technical document I ever encountered was the DOS C compiler from
> Microsoft over 20 years ago. At about 1.5" thick, the book that came with
> it was excellent. I kept the book long after I ditched the compiler. Every
> item listed in the index had sample code associated with it that not only
> showed how to use the item, but also provided examples for the boundary
> conditions that reinforced what the documentation said.
>
AFAICS, there's nothing in Texinfo preventing a developer from writing
such an excellent documentation; what prevents it is typically the fact
that writing good documentation is hard, subtly complex, time consuming,
and tiring.  No silver bullet for that; a tool or a format can only
remove the non-essential, "mundane" difficulties, not the intrinsic
ones.

> Absolutely
> excellent documentation. It used the K&R style but applied it to the entire
> subroutine library.
>

Regards,
  Stefano