Re: docstrings and elisp reference

[Chad Brown]

> On 7Jun, 2017, at 20:48, Jean-Christophe Helary <address@hidden> wrote:
> 
> 2) my remark about javadoc was not intended to suggest a replacement of the 
> current documentation, but to have a document that has all the docstring 
> information (Emacs API) in one place. It would be an alternative to the info 
> system, with exactly the same contents. It would be a great tool to find API 
> information and also very practical to check if the rules defined in the GNU 
> Coding Standards are respected.

Could you perhaps talk about what you see as the benefit to “an alternative to 
the info system, with exactly the same contents”? 

For example, I could imagine some small value to being able to see info manuals 
incorporated into systems that have already included documentation sets (like 
Zeal, mentioned earlier), but that also represents a loss, since learning how 
to use info in particular — and learning how the “self-documenting” part of 
emacs works in general — is a potent step in mastering emacs. Also, as you 
might have noticed, emacs tends to prefer to incorporate other systems, rather 
than the other way around. :-)

Certainly, there’s a fair bit of friction and a lot of inertia around both info 
and texifnfo, but it looks like you’re already looking into that — thanks in 
advance for that, by the way. 

I hope that helps,
~Chad