Usage of FOR-RELEASE [WAS: Deliberate breaking of bootstrapping in locals.texi; WAS: Bootstrap failure; WAS: Can not build lispref info]

Usage of FOR-RELEASE [WAS: Deliberate breaking of bootstrapping in locals.texi; WAS: Bootstrap failure; WAS: Can not build lispref info]

[Lars Hansen]

Why not use the file FOR-RELEASE to write down things that must not be 
forgotten instead of breaking the build?
Obviously a number of people have spent time investigating why the build 
fails and make their own work-around. IMHO that is waste of time.

Re: Usage of FOR-RELEASE [WAS: Deliberate breaking of bootstrapping in locals.texi; WAS: Bootstrap failure; WAS: Can not build lispref info]

[Richard Stallman]

I installed the fix so that problems building manuals won't make
a build fail.  I thought I had installed it before.

I don't mind using FOR-RELEASE to record these things, but it is
ridiculous to argue that there's something wrong with xrefs to
nowhere, merely because the build setup doesn't handle them right.
Who's the master, us or the build setup?  So I have started to fix it.

Re: Usage of FOR-RELEASE [WAS: Deliberate breaking of bootstrapping in locals.texi; WAS: Bootstrap failure; WAS: Can not build lispref info]

[Luc Teirlinck]

Richard Stallman wrote:

   I installed the fix so that problems building manuals won't make
   a build fail.  I thought I had installed it before.

Yes, but building the Elisp manual still fails, without telling the
user anything about it.  (I doubt that many users will notice the
error messages flashing by on the screen buried among tons of other
error messages.)  I just bootstrapped with your new changes.  Changes
made by me or others to the Elisp manuals got ignored, because the
Elisp manual did not get rebuilt.  This without any notice.  We ask
people to check the manuals.  The least we can do is provide them with
up to date versions of the manuals.

   I don't mind using FOR-RELEASE to record these things, but it is
   ridiculous to argue that there's something wrong with xrefs to
   nowhere, merely because the build setup doesn't handle them right.

But that is not what we are arguing.  There is something wrong with
xrefs that point nowhere, _at present_, until it is _really_ fixed,
because it wastes the time of many people by misleading them into
believing that they are using an updated version of the Elisp manual.

   So I have started to fix it.

But you have not finished fixing it.  Unless things are going to be
really fixed in matter of one day or so, I propose to comment out
those xrefs again, so people's time will no longer be wasted.

Sincerely,

Luc.