Re: [help-texinfo] preferred way to change output for a macro

[Robert Dodier]

On Sat, Apr 27, 2013 at 2:52 AM, Patrice Dumas <address@hidden> wrote:

> Could you be more specific?  I see nothing that implies that user
> defined macros could redefine the indicating commands?

Section 9.1 of the Texinfo 5.1 manual.

"Texinfo has commands for indicating just what kind of object a
piece of text refers to. For example, metasyntactic variables are
marked by @var, and code by @code. Since the pieces of text
are labeled by commands that tell what kind of object they are,
it is easy to change the way the Texinfo formatters prepare such
text. (Texinfo is an intentional formatting language rather than a
typesetting formatting language.)"

I have to wonder what is "easy to change" here, if it is not
the output of @var and other macros.

Next paragraph just reinforces the idea.

"For example, in a printed manual, code is usually illustrated in
a typewriter font; @code tells TeX to typeset this text in this font.
But it would be easy to change the way TeX highlights code to
use another font, [....]"

How shall we easily change the way code is typeset,
if changing @code is discouraged? Surely it is not suggesting
that such changes are easy for Texinfo developers alone,
and just as surely it is not suggesting to do a global search
and replace s/@code/@mycode/g.

> Nope, documentation is synchronized with the code.

It appears that I am not sufficiently enlightened to read the
manual ... in another lifetime I'll be ready.

best

Robert Dodier