The godoc command, golang.org/x/tools/cmd/godoc, was never redesigned to make full use of modules, has been deprecated in favor of pkgsite (https://pkg.go.dev), and has been neglected for some time. We propose to isolate, tag, and delete it from the golang.org/x/tools repository, using a similar process to the deletion of cmd/cover.

The main objection to doing so was that godoc is still useful for previewing the documentation of locally edited code, and that its replacement, pkgsite, was not well suited to the local preview use case and really needs additional features such as the ability to run without the network and to load packages on demand after startup. However, @findleyr recently added those features.

Are there any remaining reasons why we should not tag and delete cmd/godoc?

Related:

• https://go.dev/cl/349051 -- deprecation of godoc, and review discussion
• x/tools/cmd/godoc: add module support #33655 (comment) discussion of godoc limitations
• x/tools/cmd/godoc: jquery can be updated to a newer version #39535 -- security warning re: godoc's old version of jquery
• x/tools/cmd/cover: isolate, tag, and delete package #56783 -- analogous issue for deleting cmd/cover
• https://go.dev/cl/451595, https://go.dev/cl/451596 -- analogous CLs to tag and delete cmd/cover
• https://go.dev/cl/474136 -- preparatory change to cmd/present to remove an import
• https://go.dev/cl/474156 -- pending change to create the submodules
• proposal: x/tools/cmd/godoc: un-deprecate (or make pkgsite more compatible) #50229 -- a counterproposal to un-deprecate godoc, especially for reviewing local edits
• x/tools: define module boundaries #27858 -- about module boundaries in subrepos such as x/tools
• proposal: x: decide policy for sub-repositories #17244 -- policy for packages in subrepos