conventions for .texi files



Hello,

I've been making a number of changes to the doc/info/*.texi
files over the last several weeks. Let me briefly summarize.
I hope that this won't be controversial but if so it's better
to find out sooner rather than later.

 - make descriptions conform to observed behavior

 - adopt neutral tone & talk about user in 3rd person

 - for functions, state return type, & distinguish returning
   something from printing something

 - change @defwhatever FOO to @defwhatever foo

 - if a function has several variations, @defunx all variations,
   explicitly state variations in text (replace "You can also")

 - write @code{foo} for FOO in text

 - split long text blocks into short paragraphs

 - rerun examples with linel: 65
   (verifies examples, fixes alignment, and makes lowercase)

 - write "Default value: foo" instead of "Default: [FOO]" for variables

 - write @code{foo} for FOO[BAR] (notation for default value;
   omit default value everywhere but in description of foo)

 - write "See also @code{foo}" for "Do DESCRIBE(FOO)$"

 - strike out descriptions of undefined functions and 
   unused variables (no changes to Lisp source code)

 - strike out obsolete @c @node and @c @unnumberedsec comments

 - strike out references to obsolete hardware & software,
   change Macsyma, MACSYMA, etc to Maxima

I've tried to make the documentation more precise, more extensive,
more accurate, and, in general, less aggressively wierd.
You'll let me know if I have fallen short of the goal. There is 
still a lot of work to do.

regards,
Robert Dodier


		
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