Re: INFO on add-ons

[Eli Zaretskii]

On Wed, 4 Sep 2002, Alex Schroeder wrote:

> Most of the code I write fits into an elisp file.  Instead of writing
> texinfo, and worrying about correct installation, and copyright info,
> and layouting, and cross references, I would rather just put the stuff
> in the Commentary section, and provide as much help as possible in the
> defgroup, defcustom, and defun statements.  These docstrings are what
> programmers and users use in their daily life.  The manuals are not
> used very often.

The doc strings have a disadvantage that they lack a broader context.  
That is, a doc string documents its parent object, and sometimes a small 
number of related objects, but it doesn't give you a large-scale view.

Comments are nice, but they lack an efficient mechanism for looking up 
the information.

Texinfo solves these problems (the latter one is solved via index-search 
and other ways of searching Info manuals).

So a well-indexed Texinfo manual is IMHO a necessary element of 
documenting software.