Re: Include GDB/MI docs in GDB manual

[Eli Zaretskii <eliz at delorie dot com>]

Date: Mon, 17 Apr 2000 19:55:58 +0400 (MSD)
From: Dmitry Sivachenko <dima@Chg.RU>

> I think it is bad idea to make a 'garbage heap' from the GDB manual,
> mainly intended for regular GDB users, not 'GDB hackers'.

I tend to the opposite ;-)

I think that, ideally, the documentation should include everything in
a single place.  If properly indexed, such a document, however large,
is a handy tool for finding any issue your are after, in a fast and
efficient way.

In contrast, cross-references between different manuals are usually
rare, and the facilities for searching multiple documents are abysmally
more primitive (and mostly unknown and unused) than what you have for
searching a single Info document.

Here's a simple demonstration: the GDB manual does not have a single
reference to the GDB Internals manual.  How do we expect a user who
reads gdb.info to know that more docs about GDB is available
elsewhere?

Btw, the fact that "make install" in the GDB distro doesn't install
the Info docs, unlike any other GNU project I've seen, actually makes
it more probable that gdbint.info will not be installed anywhere along
INFOPATH.  So even advanced features like "info --apropos" (how many
people around here even know about the --apropos switch?) might not
help.