Re: Debian TeX Policy / fonts -- update in the works...
Frank Küster <frank@debian.org> wrote:
> Thank you. I like the content of what you wrote; however I'd prefer the
> wording to be much shorter. After all, the title of the document is
> "Policy", not "Explanation" or "Developers' Reference".
Well, I like reading the Debian Policy because it usually explains the
rationale behind its recommendations. The intended audience is package
maintainers; if someone must understand the /why/, it's surely them.
> I have introduced "TDS" in Terms and Definitions, with this you can
> shorten the second paragraph of "2." a bit;
OK, will snip this bit.
> and I suggest to put that paragraph into a footnote. I would also put
> the "Rationale" part of "6.", i.e. the second and third paragraph,
> into a footnote.
Ah. Actually, the TDS reference was first written by me in a footnote.
Footnotes are handy for authors, but they distract reading, IMO (Jill
Knuth said something like "Don't use footnotes in your books, Don",
according to the TeXbook!).
> I would also like to see the description of the Magic Comment to be
> shorter; less of rationale and "this is also good because", and of
> "conversational" tone ("little mechanism"). Unfortunately I don't think
> I'm the right person to write that - I tend to write in the very same
> style I critized...
I propose to make the enumlist complete in that if you follow it, your
package will be policy-compliant, while as short as possible, and defer
most, if not all explanations to the end of the section. OK?
Anyway: if dh_installtexfonts works as expected, nobody but its
maintainer(s) and people willing to understand will ever read past the
first paragraph... Therefore, the explanations must be there IMO.
--
Florent
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