Re: [patch+doc] New gdbinit.5 man page

[Eli Zaretskii <eliz@gnu.org>]

> Date: Tue, 19 Feb 2013 17:27:41 +0100
> From: Jan Kratochvil <jan.kratochvil@redhat.com>
> Cc: Tom Tromey <tromey@redhat.com>, gdb-patches@sourceware.org
> 
> On Wed, 13 Feb 2013 18:42:25 +0100, Eli Zaretskii wrote:
> > I just don't see how it will make maintenance simpler.  But I'm
> > prepared to be convinced ;-)
> 
> On Tue, 12 Feb 2013 17:11:18 +0100, Eli Zaretskii wrote:
> > Why is this better than maintaining man pages in their roff format?
> 
> One reason is that mostly any other format is more convenient to write and
> maintain than roff.  So that means to write man pages either in pod or in
> texinfo (or maybe in some other format but not roff).

There's a downside as well: you need Perl to be available.

> Another reason is that GDB contributors already have to know texinfo for the
> GDB manual updates so it means a more difficult learning curve to require
> another documentation format (such as pod) knowledge from contributors.
> 
> Is there some reason why not to have all the GDB man pages in texinfo?

If doing that helps people contribute and keep the man pages up to
date, let's go for it.

Thanks.