[tex-live] searching help for files w/o documentation

Robin Fairbairns Robin.Fairbairns at cl.cam.ac.uk
Sun Dec 21 19:09:27 CET 2008


Philip TAYLOR (Ret'd) <P.Taylor at Rhul.Ac.Uk> wrote:

> Robin Fairbairns wrote:
> 
> > if the only documentation is the package file itself, i would consider
> > it undocumented.
> 
> That seems a somewhat jaundiced view.  Some authors
> take great care to make their code self-documenting.
> (I seem to recall my "Cropmarks.tex" [1] was just such).

an antique file: people (who care about documentation) just don't do it
that way any more.

> > what actual use would be served by making cjknumb.sty available to the
> > ordinary user?
> 
> Perhaps little (I've looked at it); but surely Werner
> is not asking for CJKnumb to be special-cased, but rather
> that "the ordinary user" (modern-day English for /hoi polloi/ ?)
> be always offered the .sty (or <whatever>) file if
> no explicit documentation exists.

since most packages have been created from documented source using
docstrip, they contain almost no comments other than licence details.

thus, in most cases, the source is useless as documentation to all but
cognoscenti.  and the cognoscenti are unlikely to have any difficulty
finding the source files.

> [1] http://ctan.binkerton.com/ctan.content.php?filename=/macros/generic/misc/CropMarks_pt.tex

what's binkerton?  why is it so secret that you're the only person who
knows about it?  aren't you going to be in trouble letting the secret
out (particularly in a forum that includes people who work on ctan)?

robin


More information about the tex-live mailing list