Re: [Gnu-arch-users] Re: doc formats

[Stephen J. Turnbull]

>>>>> "Miles" == Miles Bader <address@hidden> writes:

    Miles> Er, I don't know about that.  There are about 1,783
    Miles> different "structured text" formats out there, and ReST
    Miles> doesn't seem to be a particularly great one.

Have you actually used it?  I use it all the time, and I like it a
lot.  I've tried others, including StructuredText and ASCIIText and
YaML, and reST is the best of those I tried.

    Miles> and the table syntax is completely awful (tables are
    Miles> actually ascii-art tables, which are a big pain in the butt
    Miles> to maintain).

==== == ======================================
What is so hard about a format like this?
==== == ======================================
Hell I  sure don't know.
It's a  pretty easy thing to type.
Yes, a  reST table does require some fiddling.
Eg,  I  had to extend the rules for fiddling.
==== == ======================================

Of course if you want something complex, with cells spanning rows and
columns, it's annoying because you need the vertical rules.  I don't
see how to avoid that, though, and table.el does pretty well with it
(IIRC -- I don't actually use anything but the simple format above in
practice.)

On the other hand, when reST as the standard markup for manuals came
up on python-dev a couple weeks ago, there was determined opposition
from both the LaTeX crowd (current standard) and the "semantic markup"
(ie, XML) crowd.  Not a great recommendation.

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