[Haskell-cafe] haddock backends

[Mateusz Kowalczyk]

On 07/01/14 13:10, Roman Cheplyaka wrote:
> * Mateusz Kowalczyk <fuuzetsu at fuuzetsu.co.uk> [2014-01-07 02:52:12+0000]
>> * This touches on frequently overlooked problem: Haddock targets more
>>   than just the HTML back-end. We also have the LaTeX back-end and the
>>   Hoogle back-end. This is why we don't allow things like verbatim
>>   HTML in the markup, it doesn't make sense for anything but HTML.
>>   Admittedly, LaTeX back-end could just generate the maths itself but
>>   we then suddenly have to change the ‘verbatim’ block to the ‘LaTeX’
>>   block. It's also unclear how Hoogle back-end would deal with this.
>>   Even if we add the ‘LaTeX structure‘ to Haddock, I'm afraid that it
>>   might end up with people just writing LaTeX for their documentation
>>   which is useless for anyone not using that back-end.
>
> I see no reason why haddock should have a hoogle backend, as opposed to
> hoogle using the GHC API directly. It's just a hack that exists for
> historical reasons.

I also don't see why it's there but I don't think we can just remove
it. There are bugs reported against it which means that it's being
used. It is quite broken. I think a separate application to generate
the .hoo files would effectively be replicating Haddock.

> Other than that, HTML is the only backend really in use at the moment,
> I believe.

I have also thought this until we started considering removal of the
LaTeX back-end. It turns out that there are people who do use it.

In any case, I'm open to the back-end changes/removal/addition
discussions but I think it should be done in a separate thread.

>
> Roman
>


--
Mateusz K.