On Mon, Mar 13, 2023 at 07:37:25AM -0600, Jonathan Corbet wrote: > David Vernet <void@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> writes: > > > Sure, but there are practicalities to consider here. It takes O(minutes) > > to do a full docs build, as opposed to O(seconds). I've done reviews of > > docs patches where the engineer tried to build the docs tree, but > > thought it was hung and ended up cancelling it. Full docs builds also > > unfortunately spew quite a few warnings in other subtrees. You have to > > carefully wade through the warnings in those other subtrees to ensure > > you haven't added any new ones. > > > > It's hard enough to get people to write documentation. It's also hard > > enough to get them to test building their documentation before > > submitting it. I think there is a lot of value in being able to build > > the documentation for the subtree you're contributing to, and be able to > > have some expectation that it builds cleanly. Let's not make it more > > difficult for the people who are actually adding substantive > > documentation. > > I get your point, but that is essentially saying that there should be no > linkages between our documentation subtrees, which defeats much of the > purpose of using a system like Sphinx. I certainly agree that inter-subtree links are great to have, though in my opinion, other features such as linking kernel-doc comments, auto section labeling, etc make Sphinx very useful in their own right. But yes, having inter-subtree links is of course a useful feature as well. > In this specific case, though, there is a better solution. Text like: > > see the netdev FAQ (Documentation/process/maintainer-netdev.rst) > > will add links in the built docs, and also tells readers of the > plain-text files where they should be looking. Without adding warnings. Nice, seems like the best of both worlds. A syntax clarification question: are you saying that this would work? > see the `netdev-FAQ`_. > > <snip> > > .. _netdev-FAQ: Documentation/process/maintainer-netdev.rst Or is it required to have the full path inline in the text, as in your example: > see the netdev FAQ (Documentation/process/maintainer-netdev.rst) The benefit of the former is of course that you only have to specify the link in one place. > For the bigger problem, the right answer is to start using intersphinx. > I guess I need to get serious about playing with that. Based on a quick online search, that indeed sounds like the ideal solution. Thanks, David
