[DOC-SIG] Library reference SGML plan

[Guido van Rossum]

[me]
> > I expect that more and more people get the
> > documentation (in PostScript or HTML) off the web site,...

[MA Lemburg]
> Which is very convenient :) Say, wouldn't it make sense to
> break the distribution into a program source and a documentation
> source part ?! The preformatted versions of the docs are just so much
> simpler to install and use than the source versions. I mean
> honestly: how many users do really want to get latex or jade
> running .before. seeing any of the neat manuals explaining
> Python ? Getting Python to install is a piece of cake
> compared to that...

Many packages these days come with preformatted HTML as the only
documentation, and it's mighty convenient.  I could do this, and
create separate bundles for the PostScript and latex.  Unfortunately,
it's not a space saver: e.g. the library manual HTML, tarred and
gzipped, is about 840K, while the latex is less than 240K (also tarred
and gzipped).  Take similar expansion factors for the other manual
pages, and you may see the tarred, gzipped Python distribution grow
from 5.4 Meg to 6.5 Meg -- after unzipping it will probably add 2 or 3
Meg.  Is this acceptable?  (On the other hand, it's easy enough for
most people to download the HTML separately if they need it, and it
*is* called a source distribution...)

--Guido van Rossum (home page: http://www.python.org/~guido/)


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