Re: [ELPA] New package c-intro-and-ref -- was Re: Proposal: Include C Manual from RMS in Emacs git, and/or release

[Jeremy Bryant]

Eli Zaretskii <eliz@gnu.org> writes:

>> From: Jeremy Bryant <jb@jeremybryant.net>
>> Cc: rms@gnu.org, emacs-devel@gnu.org, Philip Kaludercic
>> <philipk@posteo.net>
>> Date: Tue, 03 Dec 2024 23:03:42 +0000
>> 
>> I have created a prototype ELPA package, comments welcome?
>
> Are we providing packages that include only Info manuals, which
> document stuff that is not specific to Emacs?  Because I don't see how
> it would be a good idea to have this as an ELPA package.

I hear that maybe it's not a good idea, as this is not Emacs specific.

>From a complementary point of view, reading this list it appears that
there is a smaller number of C contributors to Emacs, compared to Lisp,
and more C contributors are needed to work on Emacs.

Can we facilitate C documentation?
For example.  The info-look.el subsystem already adds lookup facility for 
manuals such
as (libc).  Wouldn't it be useful to also have c.info similarly
available and to aid in Emacs C development?  That is
part of the motivation.


>
> But if we do accept such packages on ELPA, then I have 2 additional
> similar suggestions:
>
>   . Git manual in Info format
>   . Python 3 manual in Info format

Yes, I recently wrote about the second point for Python, so I would agree.
(https://onlisp.co.uk/Creating-an-info-manual-for-Python.html)
I may be able to volunteer towards a prototype, depending on time.

>
>> Current Package name, proposed for ELPA: c-intro-and-ref
>> This matches the existing manual distribution.
>> Perhaps a name such as: gnu-c-manual
>
> That'd be wrong, since this manual doesn't describe GNU C, it
> describes the C language in general.  (There's a separate GNU C
> manual, btw.)

Thanks for the perspective, I do find the several names overlapping,
possibly for historical reasons.

The c.texi file starts with a mention of GNU C

@direntry
* C: (c).       GNU C Language Intro and Reference Manual
@end direntry