Re: [boost] Missing Documentation on Building and Installing Documentation.

Subject: Re: [boost] Missing Documentation on Building and Installing Documentation.
From: Stirling Westrup (swestrup_at_[hidden])
Date: 2011-03-18 11:10:23

On Fri, Mar 18, 2011 at 5:41 AM, Julian Gonggrijp <j.gonggrijp_at_[hidden]> wrote:
> Stirling Westrup wrote:
>
>> On Thu, Mar 17, 2011 at 4:30 PM, Steven Watanabe <watanabesj_at_[hidden]> wrote:
>
>>> The documentation should be pre-built.
>>> You can access it at libs/libraries.htm
>>> or libs/<library name>/index.html.
>>> Unfortunately, there's no way to install
>>> the documentation. It's set up to
>>> live in the source tree and moving
>>> would break a lot of links.
>>
>> It should not be that impossible as several distributions, such as
>> Debian, place the documentation in /usr/share/doc and the links all
>> work. Besides, isn't the documentation generated by docbook or doxygen
>> or some similar system? If it is, it should be simple enough to
>> generate it for any desired target location.
>
> Distributions like Debian's have been manually modified to suit the
> needs of the distributor. They might also have changed other aspects
> of the directory tree. Such adaptations are not provided by the Boost
> developers.

My point was that if Debian is doing it then there is obviously a
viable method, and one could simply decide to adopt it. Proper
documentations SHOULD be provided by Boost. Simply saying that it
resides in the build tree is no more acceptable than telling folks
that the headers all reside in the build tree and need to be manually
modified to be installed.

> Besides, not all documentation is generated with BoostBook. Also I
> think it shouldn't have to, because in some cases such documentation
> systems can be too rigid.

If the documentation cannot be automatically installed in a standard
documentation repository, then the current documentation system is too
rigid and needs to be fixed.

-- 
Stirling Westrup
Programmer, Entrepreneur.
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