Simon Michael wrote: >>> My two cents - there are some things in rST I would like to have but I >>> think it has gone too far with it's rules.
Richard Jones wrote: >> This seems to be a common argument, and I honestly can't understand it. I'm >> not going argue it here, I'll just point you all to the "primer" document >> which outlines the basics of ReST: >> >> http://docutils.sourceforge.net/docs/rst/quickstart.html > > Hi Richard, > > It was more an expression of personal taste than an argument. But I > didn't understand your not understanding, I believe Richard is referring to a phenomenon I've experienced as well (although it's probably not what Simon initially complained about, which was in fact the *PEP* rules). Newbies will read through the reStructuredText spec and gasp, "Too many details! Too many rules! Too complex!", followed by, "Not for me!". Thanks to Richard, we now have the Primer document referenced above. I've just added a note to the beginning of the spec, basically saying "New Users: read the Primer first!" There are also the people who complain that reStructuredText is "too complex", referring to the number of constructs available. It's not complex; it's rich. To the new user, the constructs listed in the Primer above are sufficient. But when the user has need for more sophisticated constructs, they're ready & waiting. Other markups, like StructuredText, are much more limited; they reveal their limitations when the user needs more than a really simple "toy" markup. reStructuredText aims for a higher level of completeness and flexibility. Of course, there are limits inherent in the premise of readable plaintext, and there are applications for which these limits rule out the use of reStructuredText. But reStructuredText pushes the envelope, allowing for a lot more without resorting to verbose, ugly, unreadable XML-type markup. -- David Goodger <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Open-source projects: - Python Docutils: http://docutils.sourceforge.net/ (includes reStructuredText: http://docutils.sf.net/rst.html) - The Go Tools Project: http://gotools.sourceforge.net/ _______________________________________________ Zope-Dev maillist - [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://lists.zope.org/mailman/listinfo/zope-dev ** No cross posts or HTML encoding! ** (Related lists - http://lists.zope.org/mailman/listinfo/zope-announce http://lists.zope.org/mailman/listinfo/zope )
