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

[Philip TAYLOR (Ret'd)]

Robin Fairbairns wrote :

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

Some don't.

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

Are you speaking only of LaTeX packages, or of
TeX packages in general ?

> 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.

I disagree, as I disagree with George N White III, 'though
I haven't replied directly_ : just because one can read
and write TeX macros doesn't mean that one understands
(e.g.,) "kpathsea" and its friends [1] ...  They are as
different as chalk and brie de meaux.

>> [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)?

No idea : I simply did a Google search for my Cropmarks.TeX sources.

** Phil.
--------
[1]  >  "$ less $(kpsewhich <whatever>.sty)".
means as much to me as a sentence taken at random
from Russell and Whitehead's /Principia Mathematica/
(or, for that matter, Aleister Crowley's /Magick in
Theory and Practice/).