Re: [PATCH 1/1] Documentation: drm: describing drm properties exposed by various drivers

[Randy Dunlap <rdunlap@infradead.org>]

On 05/12/2014 08:54 AM, Daniel Vetter wrote:
> On Mon, May 12, 2014 at 08:23:45AM -0700, Randy Dunlap wrote:
>> On 05/12/2014 01:58 AM, Daniel Vetter wrote:
>>> On Mon, May 12, 2014 at 06:24:57PM +1000, Dave Airlie wrote:
>>>>>>
>>>>>> If we decide to go for property documentation inside the source code then I
>>>>>> believe we'll have to create our own format, as creating a properties table
>>>>>> from kerneldoc information extracted from comments is probably not possible.
>>>>>
>>>>> Can comeone pick up the ball here and figure out what needs to be done?
>>>>>
>>>>> The reason why I want a central place for the documentation is to force
>>>>> people to collaborate outside their own sandbox when adding properties.
>>>>> Whether that's docbook or some text file I don't care so much at this
>>>>> point. The fact that it's a central place should mandate that the
>>>>> patches changing it will go through dri-devel and so everyone should se
>>>>> them, and when adding new properties it would make the patch author more
>>>>> likely to look around a bit before adding another slighty incompatible
>>>>> version of the same property. If someone has a better suggestion how to
>>>>> encforce this I'm all ears.
>>>>>
>>>>> Of course this idea can still fail if our esteemed maintainer merges
>>>>> stuff without checking for violations of this policy. Dave, any thoughts
>>>>> on the subject?
>>>>
>>>> Yeah I'm happy to block merging stuff, if we can spot new properties
>>>> when stuff is posted on dri-devel, so much the better,
>>>>
>>>> most drivers still send everything via dri-devel anyways, its only
>>>> really Intel I have to worry about so far,
>>>
>>> I'll enforce that all prop stuff gets cc: dri-devel and that it has
>>> updates for the prop docs.
>>>
>>>> But we should definitely add it to the new driver review checklist as well.
>>>>
>>>> I'm also on the side of this patch is ugly and makes my eyes burn,
>>>> please please get a plan to use something else ASAP, I'm willing to
>>>> merge this but I'm tempted to give it a lifetime of a kernel or two
>>>> before I burn it.
>>>
>>> Ok, I'll try to move "make kerneldoc suck less" up the task list and maybe
>>> find someone to do it for me internally ;-)
>>> -Daniel
>>>
>>
>> I certainly have no objections to making kerneldoc suck less.
>> There was already an attempt to use asciidoc (like git uses) for kernel-doc
>> (a few years ago, by Sam Ravnborg).  I support(ed) that effort.
> 
> Hm, do you have pointers to those? My google-fu seems lacking ...

I googled for /kernel doc asciidoc ravnborg/ and found several hits for them.

> Ok, let's move this to the top and start discussions. The past few months
> I've written piles of kerneldoc comments for the DRM DocBook (all pulled
> in as kerneldoc, docbook .tmpl has just the chapter structure). DOC:
> sections are really useful to pull all the actual documentation out of the
> docbook xml into kerneldoc.
> 
> But I've also done piles of docs for intel-gpu-tools, which is using
> gtkdoc. And there are some clear deficiencies:
> 
> - No markdown for inline coments. Lack of lists and tables is hurting
>   especially badly. If we add this (and I don't care one iota whether it's

Yes, I've tried to add lists to kernel-doc notation but have failed so far.

>   markdown or asciidoc or something else as long as it's readable plain
>   text in comments) we should be able to move all the existing docbook xml
>   paragraphs/lists/tables into kerneldoc comments.
> 
> - Automatic cross-referencing of functions. If you place e.g. function()
>   or #struct anywhere in a documentation comment gtk-doc automatically
>   inserts a hyperlink to the relevant documentation page across the entire
>   project. Really powerful and makes overview sections much more useful
>   entry points for beginners since they can easily jump back&forth
>   betweeen the high-level overview and low-level per-function
>   documentation.
> 

That's a nice-to-have IMO, but a really nice one.

> - In a really perfect world it would help if kerneldoc could collect
>   structure member kerneldoc from per-member comments. Especially for
>   large structures with lots of comments this would bring the kerneldoc
>   and struct member much closer together.
> 
> So that's my wishlist.
>  
>> OTOH, I would only want to add another way to do kernel-doc if it can be a
>> full replacement for all of our docbook usage, i.e., it should provide a
>> way that we can eliminate docbook and stop using it completely.
> 
> Hm, I don't mind docbook at all, as long as all the real content is
> embedded into source files as kerneldoc and the docbook template just
> pulls in all the right bits and pieces. Even gtkdoc allos you to do that
> and pull in the different libararies (== header files with declarations
> for C) in the order you want. So imo the docbook toolchain is good enough
> for my needs.
> 
> Or what do you mean by getting rid of all docbook usage?

I meant no docbook style sheets, no 'xmlto', the whole ball of wax.

But primarily I don't want to see drivers/video/ using one set of doc tools
and drivers/media/ using another set and drivers/xyz/ using its own set of
tools, etc. etc. etc.


-- 
~Randy