Re: [PATCH]: Suggested documentation about working with Bison versions.

[Paul Eggert]

On 10/13/20 5:11 PM, Kaz Kylheku wrote:

>      doc: document best deployment practices.

Thanks, this sort of thing should be helpful. I see you haven't signed copyright 
papers for Bison, though. I assume you know how to jump through the hoops? If 
not, I can send you email as to how to get the ball rolling.

> +Bison provides a Yacc compatibility mode in which it strives to conform with
> +the POSIX standard. Grammar files which are written to the POSIX standard, and
> +do not take advantage of any of the special capabilities of Bison, are very
> +likely to work with many version of Bison without modification.

very likely to work with many version of->
should work with

Also, the Texinfo input should have two spaces after ".", if that's the style 
used elsewhere in the Bison manual.

> +Some features of Bison have been, or are being adopted into other Yacc-like
> +programs. Therefore it might seem that is a good idea to write grammar code
> +which targets multiple implementations, similarly to the way C programs are
> +often written to target multiple compilers and language versions. This practice
> +is not highly recommended, however.

Remove "This practice is not highly recommended, however." It conveys little 
info and isn't needed in the context of the paragraph.

> +Developers who strive to make their Bison code simultaneously
> +compatible with other parser generators are encouraged to nevertheless use
> +specific versions of all generators, and still follow the recommended practice
> +of shipping generated output.

Not sure what is being recommended here. A developer is supposed to list all 
versions of all generates the grammar is capable with, and test them all, but 
generate a tarball with one of them? Or generate multiple tarballs?

Perhaps supply a small example of the issue. That would clarify the intent, I 
expect.