[Groff] Re: Restructuring the top level directory

[Bernd Warken]

On Wed, Feb 13, 2002 at 04:36:27PM +0100, Werner LEMBERG wrote:
> > To tame the chaos a step further
> > 
> > <top>
> >   share
> >     tmac
> >       ...
> >     doc
> >     man
> >     info
> >   src
> >     ...
> >   Documentation   (the top-level docs: READMEs, Licenses, ...)
> 
> I think this isn't necessary.  Even after restructuring and the
> introduction of recursive searching, there will be separate
> environment variables and command line switches for `font' and `tmac'
> for backwards compatibility.  Additionally, installing the tmac
> directory in .../share/... is recommended but not necessary.

Here, I'm talking about the top source directory; this is completely
independent of where the files get finally installed.  The top source
directory is quite cluttered; so if we are about to restructure tmac
the top directory could be done at the same time.  

As was discussed several times before, the top-level documentation 
files (e.g. the license files) should go to a subdirectory; this could
be called "Documentation", "README.d" or something similar.

The top-level source directory should contain only the files that do
the installation (Makefiles, configure stuff, patch file).

I chose to group the source subdirectories "tmac", "font", and "doc" 
into a new subdirectory "share" because that's where they will be 
installed according to the FHS.

Summarizing, my proposal is to have the following subdirs in <groff_source/>

./Documentation
./contrib
./share
./src

where ./share contains the subdirs

./share/doc
./share/font
./share/info
./share/man
./share/tmac

and ./share/tmac will get the substructure that Werner can live with.
Especially, the ./share/doc and ./share/info subdirs with decent 
installation Makefiles are urgently needed.  It's a shame that the
manuals aren't installed by default.

I think that these measures will increase the readability and make it
easier to maintain the code.

The TDS does not have an impact on this proposal because it deals with
the installation aspects, not on the structure of the source code.

Order is only the seventh part of life, but it is a good starting point
for working out interfaces.

Bernd Warken