On Saturday, July 7, 2018, Peter Eisentraut <
peter.eisentraut@2ndquadrant.com> wrote:
On 27.05.18 05:08, Tom Lane wrote:
> "Vianello, Daniel A" <Daniel.Vianello@charter.com> writes:
>>> Uh, why would we list \ir before the simpler \i?
>
>> So that the request is to merge \ir into the \i section (not before \i but part of that discusstion) rather than being separated by the comparatively longer section for \if
>
> It was, in fact, like that initially. Peter E. changed it in commit
> 0d9bdbcaae0, without any discussion that I remember seeing. I've never
> been very happy with "alphabetical order trumps all other considerations"
> as a documentation rule, and this seems like a good example of why not.
The rule is, alphabetical order trumps no consideration. ;-)
I can see the point here. Merging \i and \ir into one item (with two
<term>s) might make sense.
This seems like the most desirable outcome and steps around the alphabetical discussion quite cleanly.
However, someone doing a mental binary
search across a man page would surely be confused if they don't find \ir
after \if. The question is, are they coming to the page to look up \ir,
or are they coming there to learn about groups of related commands?
Some of each. A initial set of summary tables grouped by functionality and with anchor links to the descriptions would serve both parties better but is beyond the scope of this gripe which can be solved within the current format easily enough.
Another way to associate \i and \ir is with "see also" type references.
Seems overkilll for this specific situation.
David J.