On 10/12/12 22:49, Dan Allen wrote: > I'd like to share with the AsciiDoc community that there is an effort > underway to create a cleanroom port of AsciiDoc to Ruby, named > asciidoctor [1]. > > This AsciiDoc port is close to being usable for the most common syntax, > but still has a long way to go for complete compatibility. But give it a > chance, it's a start.
Hat's off to anyone who can port AsciiDoc with reasonable fidelity. The AsciiDoc syntax and the Python code base has grown holistically (to put it euphemistically). There is no formal spec and taken in totality it is a complex beast. > > Why is this good? If the Ruby language itself can serve as evidence, > multiple implementations is a very positive thing for a software > project...particularly a language. It helps improve both the quality and > adoption of the language, and vet the ambiguities. In the case > of AsciiDoc, it will also make it easier to use with Ruby and the JVM in > general (since JRuby is so fast and very active, whereas Jython is > neither). (Who knows, perhaps we could even get a standard out of it > down the road). > > Question: Should we invite the authors of asciidoctor to migrate the > repository to the asciidoc organization on GitHub? > > I think moving asciidoctor to http://github.com/asciidoc/asciidoctor > would increase participation and speed up the progress of the effort. > > Success of that project means that AsciiDoc will make it into more > places. I know a few organizations, including the Awestruct and > Arquillian projects, which have a vested interest in seeing this port > through. > > I'm also excited about the ability to use *any* view language available > for Ruby to create backends, thanks to integration with Tilt [2]. For as > much as I like AsciiDoc, I'm not very fond of the current approach to > creating backends. The syntax is a bit esoteric when compared to view > languages like Erb, Haml, Slim, etc. Additionally, these view languages > give backend authors a lot more power to control the output that is > generated because you can use the full Ruby language...and you can even > use different view languages for different blocks. And filters are just > trivial. I agree with this assessment -- there's lots of junk DNA in AsciiDoc, but there's also lots of junk DNA in the human genome. The issues of syntax simplicity, implementation simplicity and specification simplicity is something I've been putting a lot of thought into lately. Cheers, Stuart > > -Dan > > [1] https://github.com/erebor/asciidoctor > [2] https://github.com/rtomayko/tilt > > -- > Dan Allen > Principal Software Engineer, Red Hat | Author of Seam in Action > Registered Linux User #231597 > > http://google.com/profiles/dan.j.allen > http://mojavelinux.com > http://mojavelinux.com/seaminaction > > -- > You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google > Groups "asciidoc" group. > To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. > To unsubscribe from this group, send email to > [email protected]. > For more options, visit this group at > http://groups.google.com/group/asciidoc?hl=en. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "asciidoc" group. To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [email protected]. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/asciidoc?hl=en.
