Re: Changes to Texinfo DTD

[Luc Teirlinck]

Eli Zaretskii wrote:

   Do we know what information from the glibc manual is required reading
   for the reader of the ELisp manual?

None.  Some readers _might_ need to know more about locales (hence the
reference), but the _reason_ they would need that knowledge would
definitely not be to understand the Elisp manual.  The same is (or so
I believe) true for all external references in the Elisp manual,
except references to the Emacs manual.  The Emacs manual is a
prerequisite to understanding the Elisp manual, other manuals are not.

Note that this is one more reason why, if a reference refers to another
manual, the reader needs to know that and needs to know which manual.

   If you mention the manual, the user might think that she must read it
   because it contains some crucial information without which it is
   impossible to understand the text in point.  I doubt that this is the
   case.

As I already said, it indeed is not the case.

But (elisp)Locales says as the very last sentence of the note and of
the chapter:

*Note Locales: (libc)Locales, for more information about locales and
locale items.

It says: "for more information", it does not say: "If you want to
understand anything of what you just read".

   Portability has nothing to do with this.

Portability has a lot to do with this.  This is the Elisp manual, not
the Emacs manual.  The author may want his code to not just work, as
efficiently as possible, for his computer and for his locale, but for
other people's as well.

   The question is, again, what exactly we want the user to pick up in
   the glibc manual.

Whichever information the reader happens to need.  The reference means:
If you need to know something we did not tell you above, here is a
reasonable place to search for that information.

Sincerely,

Luc.