Quickref: Common Lisp Reference Documentation as a Stress Test for Texinfo

Authors

Didier Verna

Where

TUGboat

Type

inproceedings

Publisher

TeX Users Group

Projects

Typesetting"Typesetting" is not in the list (Vaucanson, Spot, URBI, Olena, APMC, Tiger, Climb, Speaker ID, Transformers, Bison, ...) of allowed values for the "Related project" property.

Keywords

Software Engineering

Date

2019-11-06

Abstract

Quickref is a global documentation project for the Common Lisp ecosystem. It creates reference manuals automatically by introspecting libraries and generating corresponding documentation in Texinfo format. The Texinfo files may subsequently be converted into PDF or HTML. Quickref is non-intrusive: software developers do not have anything to do to get their libraries documented by the system.par Quickref may be used to create a local website documenting your current, partial, working environment, but it is also able to document the whole Common Lisp ecosystem at once. The result is a website containing almost two thousand reference manuals. Quickref provides a Docker image for an easy recreation of this website, but a public version is also available and actively maintained.par Quickref constitutes an enormous and successful stress test for Texinfo. In this paper, we give an overview of the design and architecture of the system, describe the challenges and difficulties in generating valid Texinfo code automaticallyand put some emphasis on the currently remaining problems and deficiencies.

Documents

• Paper

Bibtex (lrde.bib)

@InProceedings{	  verna.19.tug,
  author	= {Didier Verna},
  title		= {{Quickref}: {Common} {Lisp} Reference Documentation as a
		  Stress Test for {Texinfo}},
  booktitle	= {TUGboat},
  volume	= 40,
  number	= {2},
  pages		= {119--125},
  editor	= {Barbara Beeton and Karl Berry},
  organization	= {\TeX{} Users Group},
  month		= sep,
  year		= 2019,
  publisher	= {\TeX{} Users Group},
  issn		= 0896320,
  abstract	= {Quickref is a global documentation project for the Common
		  Lisp ecosystem. It creates reference manuals automatically
		  by introspecting libraries and generating corresponding
		  documentation in Texinfo format. The Texinfo files may
		  subsequently be converted into PDF or HTML. Quickref is
		  non-intrusive: software developers do not have anything to
		  do to get their libraries documented by the system.\par
		  Quickref may be used to create a local website documenting
		  your current, partial, working environment, but it is also
		  able to document the whole Common Lisp ecosystem at once.
		  The result is a website containing almost two thousand
		  reference manuals. Quickref provides a Docker image for an
		  easy recreation of this website, but a public version is
		  also available and actively maintained.\par Quickref
		  constitutes an enormous and successful stress test for
		  Texinfo. In this paper, we give an overview of the design
		  and architecture of the system, describe the challenges and
		  difficulties in generating valid Texinfo code
		  automatically, and put some emphasis on the currently
		  remaining problems and deficiencies.}
}