--- Jesper Harder <harder@ifa.au.dk> wrote:
> C Y <smustudent1@yahoo.com> writes:
>
> > Does anyone know of any method out there to parse comments in some
> > form from lisp code to form texi files?
>
> I don't know if you are aware of it, but Lisp has a standard,
> built-in way of documenting functions and variables: documentation
> strings. They have the big advantage of being available
> interactively, in contrast with "dead" ;-comments.
I wasn't aware of them, and they do sound good. My main concern is that
we have a framework within which we need to work - namely the describe
command in maxima. Ideally I'd like the comments we have in the source
code documenting functions serve a dual purpose as the material for the
describe command and the system manual. Would documentaion strings
allow us to do that?
> IMO, we should if at all possible use docstrings instead of trying to
> invent a different method.
I definitely want to avoid inventing a new method if possible. It looks
like acl2 successfully makes use of doc strings, so that might be a
guide, but we would need to be sure we can both use our describe system
with doc-string information and generate texi source from it in some
systematic fashion. I don't know how much work that would be, but I
suppose it is doable. Is there a good tutorial on using doc strings
somewhere?
CY
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