Re: [PATCH 10/57] docs: device-mapper: convert it to ReST format

[Mauro Carvalho Chehab]

Em Tue, 16 Apr 2019 08:00:24 -0600
Jonathan Corbet <corbet@xxxxxxx> escreveu:

> On Tue, 16 Apr 2019 09:28:52 -0400
> Mike Snitzer <snitzer@xxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> 
> > Can you help me understand why this is the direction text based
> > Documenation is taking in the Linux kernel?  All I see is markup, and
> > escaping of characters, that is a chore to administer over time.  
> 
> This is a discussion that was mostly resolved some years ago...
> 
> Classic Documentation/ is a jumbled collection of unorganized text files,
> some of which contain highly useful information and others of which
> haven't had much to offer since about 1996.  We are working to turn it
> into an organized collection where, hopefully, some thought has actually
> been given to the people who will be reading it.
> 
> The ReST conversion, in particular, allows us to link documents into a
> larger structure, create indexes and cross references, and produce output
> in formats like HTML and PDF.  It lets us present the documentation like
> this:
> 
> 	https://www.kernel.org/doc/html/latest/

Just to mention, in the specific case of the device-mapper patch,
this is the result of those changes (after renaming the files to .rst,
and adding an index file):

	https://www.infradead.org/~mchehab/rst_conversion/device-mapper/index.html

> 
> Among other things, making the documentation more accessible in this way
> makes it easier and more rewarding for developers to improve it, and I
> believe we are seeing the results of that.  Linus called out the
> documentation work in the 5.1-rc1 announcement, for example.
> 
> Nobody has complained about the maintenance burden of RST docs - so far as
> I have heard, anyway.  Things do break occasionally, but problems in the
> docs build almost always result from code changes that mess up the
> kerneldoc comments rather than RST changes, and it's been that way for as
> long as I've been paying attention.


> 
> Thanks,
> 
> jon



Thanks,
Mauro