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Date:   Tue, 28 Nov 2023 16:56:45 +0100
From:   Mauro Carvalho Chehab <mchehab@kernel.org>
To:     Jonathan Corbet <corbet@lwn.net>
Cc:     linux-doc@vger.kernel.org, linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org,
        Akira Yokosawa <akiyks@gmail.com>
Subject: Re: [PATCH] docs: Raise the minimum Sphinx requirement to 2.4.4
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Em Tue, 28 Nov 2023 07:42:12 -0700
Jonathan Corbet <corbet@lwn.net> escreveu:

> Mauro Carvalho Chehab <mchehab@kernel.org> writes:
> 
> > Em Mon, 27 Nov 2023 16:31:39 -0700
> > Jonathan Corbet <corbet@lwn.net> escreveu:  
> 
> >> diff --git a/scripts/sphinx-pre-install b/scripts/sphinx-pre-install
> >> index 1fb88fdceec3..db75b1b86086 100755
> >> --- a/scripts/sphinx-pre-install
> >> +++ b/scripts/sphinx-pre-install
> >> @@ -32,8 +32,7 @@ my $python_cmd = "";
> >>  my $activate_cmd;
> >>  my $min_version;
> >>  my $cur_version;
> >> -my $rec_version = "1.7.9";	# PDF won't build here
> >> -my $min_pdf_version = "2.4.4";	# Min version where pdf builds
> >> +my $rec_version = "3.0";  
> >
> > Please don't. 3.0 version has a broken C domain, not properly supported.
> > The fixes arrived only starting at 3.1 (I guess some went to 3.2, but
> > 3.1 is usable, as far as I remember).  
> 
> So you're asking for 3.1 or 3.2 instead of 3.0?

Yes. 

> 
> Honestly, I just picked 3.0 out of the air in the hopes of eventually
> deprecating 2.x.  Not lots of thought has gone into that
> number...perhaps we should recommend higher yet?

Well, we could recommend a higher version, but I can't see much
differences between 3.2 and the latest version: for what we use,
both will work on a similar way. Ok, layout may be different, there
were some improvements on PDF output, etc. but they will all produce
a decent documentation.

Yet, while most C domain bugs introduced on 3.0 were solved in 3.1
and 3.2, there's one still pending issue[1].

Once C domain finally gets rid from this long term bug that having:

	.. c:struct:: foo

	.. c:function:: void foo(void)

Produce warnings that "foo" id duplicated, then we'll have, IMO,
our next recommended version :-)

While Sphinx developers don't fix such bug, it doesn't really matter 
what version user will pick, so I would just pick the fastest one
as a recommendation, starting from 3.1 or 3.2 as our currently
recommended version.

[1] https://github.com/sphinx-doc/sphinx/pull/8313

While I didn't make any benchmarks, I remember people reported
poor performance with newer versions, so, without thinking to
much, 3.1 or 3.2 seems a good candidate for the recommended
version.

Regards,
Mauro