[Python-Dev] [Doc-SIG] that library reference, again (original) (raw)

Fredrik Lundh fredrik at pythonware.com
Thu Dec 29 22:11:02 CET 2005

David Goodger wrote:

> however, given that the discussion that led up to this has been dead for > almost a week,

You mean since Christmas? > I'm beginning to fear that I've wasted my time on a project > that nobody's interested in. Could be. I don't see HTML+PythonDoc as a significant improvement over LaTeX.

Really? Have you read my list of goals? Does LaTeX address all of them? Does ReST? If not, can you explain why they're not important.

Yes, I'm biased. So are you.

I don't think you understand the problem, so your bias is irrelevant. This is all about semantics, not presentation markup. All I've seen from the ReST camp is handwaving, there's nothing in the documentation that indicates that semantic markup has ever been a design goal in ReST, and nobody I've talked to who've tried using ReST for rich semantic markup considers it to be an alternative. This isn't about bias, this is about technical suitability.

If you think otherwise, I suggest you put pick a couple of typical document pages and show how they would look in ReST, how the corresponding semantic model will look (and when I say semantic, I mean in Python terms, not in ReST presentation terms), and how to get from LaTeX to ReST+semantics and HTML+ semantics without having to rewrite everything from scratch.

We know that you have big hats over in ReST-land; now show us some cattle.

More information about the Python-Dev mailing list