Don't recommend setting Keywords in PackageInfo.g#55
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This field seems to of at best marginal utility, if it has any. To the best of my knowledge, the only thing it is used for is by the Cite command, to insert it as a `keywords` field into the generated bib data. But is that useful? For what? All in all, I feel we might be better off not advertising this field anymore, and also phasing it out in the GAP documentation. The alternative is to keep it, but then also document all known uses of the field, i.e., in `Cite`, unless someone knows other uses?
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ThomasBreuer
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ThomasBreuer
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The (mandatory) fields intended for describing the contents of a package are subtitle and abstract, they appear on the webpage about GAP packages, and can be used for searching. (The names of most packages do not give any hint about the topic of the package.)
Apparently keywords is not used in the package webpages. I think the idea had been that keywords could be used as an additional way to explain what a package is about, in analogy to mathematical papers (but not in the sense of the AMS subject classification). Note that subtitle is requested to "fit on one line", i. e., to be very short.
If the keywords field gets deprecated then the main place to be changed is the section "The PackageInfo.g File" in the Reference Manual, and a line in ValidatePackageInfo can get removed.
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@fingolfin thanks for providing justification - but maybe this field should be used to search for a package at https://www.gap-system.org/packages/ instead? |
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This field seems to of at best marginal utility, if it has any. To the best of my knowledge, the only thing it is used for is by the Cite command, to insert it as a
keywordsfield into the generated bib data. But is that useful? For what?All in all, I feel we might be better off not advertising this field anymore, and also phasing it out in the GAP documentation. Simply because a feature where we can't explain what it is good for is not helping anyone (in fact this PR is triggered by me once again wondering "but what should I even put there?" for this field in a new package. If I knew a usecase, it would surely inform that decision. But I know none (I have no idea what "keywords" in a bib entry are good for either).
The alternative is to keep it, but then also document all known uses of the field, i.e., in
Cite, unless someone knows other uses?