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Re: [Chicken-users] Chicken manual in Texinfo format


From: Ivan Raikov
Subject: Re: [Chicken-users] Chicken manual in Texinfo format
Date: Sun, 20 May 2007 14:16:18 +0900
User-agent: Gnus/5.110006 (No Gnus v0.6) Emacs/21.4 (gnu/linux)

Hi Adhi,
   
   I don't really want to "convert" the manual to Texinfo format. The
current wiki arrangement is fine with me -- but I want to be able to
automatically generate Texinfo files from the wiki. That way, the same
content will be available in more formats -- and I think this is
consistent with Chicken's goal to be available to widest possible
audience.

   You are indeed correct that Texinfo is best suited for technical
reference manuals, and that's how I've been using the Chicken
manual. The Emacs Texinfo reader is well-integrated with the rest of
Emacs, and it provides numerous conveniences such as looking up the
documentation for a Scheme function from within a buffer containing
Scheme code, and so on. 

   I do agree that it will be very helpful to have a tutorial and
maybe a "Chicken cookbook" (ha!) for novice and intermediate users, in
addition to the current reference manual. In fact, I was thinking of
putting together a short tutorial that shows off some basic idioms of
functional programming, but I am sure it will be easy to extend it to
also include some of the unique features of Chicken, such as the
foreign function interface.  So let me fight with the wiki->texinfo
converter first, and then I will spend some time on a short
tutorial/introduction to Scheme and Chicken.


   -Ivan
   
   
Adhi Hargo <address@hidden> writes:

> Hi all,
>
> Sorry if I don't get the gist of this conversation
> (I'm new, here, anyway), but isn't converting
> Chicken's manual to Texinfo format a bit waste of
> time? Because the way I see it, chicken.pdf isn't
> really counts as a *reference* manual: you know, the
> kind of document one would print and provide within
> hand's reach, or as an INFO file one would keep in an
> Emacs frame while coding Scheme in another. I use MIT
> Scheme's reference docs (and some of Chicken's own
> source codes) for that purpose, and it suits me fine
> (well, barely).
>
> IMHO this is the right time to start redoing the docs,
> one that's sensible to be done in Texinfo, with
> separate tutorial, reference, usage manual and
> technical sections, one that's really decent to be
> called a reference document (the kind of docs Texinfo
> format is aiming at, I think).
>
> If anyone (with enough authority) willing to
> streamline the works, deciding what kind of contents
> would be included, I'm looking forward to contributing
> to a section or two.
>





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