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Re: tasks overview wishlist: Canonical citing reference



On Thu, 2008-10-16 at 22:52 +0200, Michael Banck wrote:
> On Thu, Oct 16, 2008 at 04:41:45PM -0400, Adam C Powell IV wrote:
> > My idea was actually to have the citations.bib and/or references.bib
> > in /usr/share/doc/<package> as you say, and have the .doc-base file
> > include something like:
> > 
> > Format: BibTeX
> > Files: /usr/share/doc/<package>/*.bib
> 
> Isn't this going to need changes to doc-base and/or dhelp, or do they
> understand the above already?

They don't, but they'll ignore a format they don't recognize.  I'm
proposing this as a change which new versions of dhelp/dwww will be able
to parse, and which won't break old ones.

> > Is there an advantage to having the BibTeX data right in the .doc-base
> > file?  I can't see one, and I think it might confuse .doc-base parsers.
>  
> Ok.
> 
> > So I think we agree about this.  Advantages:
> >       * It uses (and perhaps reinforces) the doc-base index system,
> >         which IMO is one of Debian's under-appreciated strengths.
> >       * It's backward-compatible with old versions of debhelper,
> >         dhelp/dwww, etc. which will just ignore that section
> >         of .doc-base.
> >       * There's a user-visible place for .bib files, which is wherever
> >         the maintainer feels is the best place for them, we don't need
> >         to wait for a script to be available to generate it.
> >       * Metadata are in one place, which is the .bib files, not
> >         duplicated in .doc-base and .bib files and plain formats and
> >         HTML and control, so the maintainer only has to change or update
> >         things once.
> >       * It doesn't bloat Packages or control.
> >       * It's future-expandable, as new versions of dhelp etc. can use
> >         the .doc-base and .bib files to generate a whole host of new
> >         user- friendly files, from a master .bib file or other reference
> >         manager files, to a plain text reference list, to an HTML index
> >         with links to the DOIs.
> >       * Scrollkeeper might follow Debian's leadership (again) and make
> >         use of such metadata.
> 
> While I think this doc-base integration is fine and nice, I still think
> having the data in free-form in addition is worthwhile.

What do you mean by "free-form"?  Plain text or HTML?  That leads to the
"same data in two places" problem...

-Adam
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