To: Robert Haas <robertmhaas@gmail.com>
cc: Bruce Momjian <bruce@momjian.us>, "Marc G. Fournier" <scrappy@hub.org>,
	Alvaro Herrera <alvherre@commandprompt.com>,
	Peter Eisentraut <peter_e@gmx.net>,
	Rafael Martinez <r.m.guerrero@usit.uio.no>,
	pgsql-docs <pgsql-docs@postgresql.org>
Subject: Re: Documentation and explanatory diagrams 
In-reply-to: <AANLkTimMqNQqDi2cuIwUzLmIWARfFblZboyQSrTbNZMQ@mail.gmail.com> 
References: <alpine.BSF.2.00.1007021839540.45189@hub.org>
	<201007022143.o62Lh0w26764@momjian.us>
	<AANLkTimMqNQqDi2cuIwUzLmIWARfFblZboyQSrTbNZMQ@mail.gmail.com>
Comments: In-reply-to Robert Haas <robertmhaas@gmail.com>
	message dated "Fri, 02 Jul 2010 17:59:17 -0400"
Date: Fri, 02 Jul 2010 22:13:21 -0400
Message-ID: <1257.1278123201@sss.pgh.pa.us>
From: Tom Lane <tgl@sss.pgh.pa.us>

Robert Haas <robertmhaas@gmail.com> writes:
> On Fri, Jul 2, 2010 at 5:43 PM, Bruce Momjian <bruce@momjian.us> wrote:
>> People often built them to verify the SGML markup and to view the
>> content/markup before submitting a doc patch.

> Actually, they often DON'T, which is a problem, and adding more
> requirements is only going to make it worse.

> There is not much reason for an end-user to build the docs - most
> end-users will install from RPMs or one-click installers or whatever.
> But everyone who is a developer needs to be able to build them,

I think that adding dia to the set of requirements isn't that big a
deal, assuming that it's a widely available package.  It's just one
program and should be a lot easier to install and configure than our
other doc toolchain requirements.

What I'm more worried about at the moment is whether it's a reasonable
choice of tool.  If the "source" for a diagram is larger than the PNG
image representation, there is something seriously wrong with the
language design.

			regards, tom lane