[Python-Dev] The docs, reloaded (original) (raw)

Stephen J. Turnbull stephen at xemacs.org
Tue May 22 13:27:16 CEST 2007

Armin Ronacher writes:

rst is simpler than latex:

LaTeX:

\item[\code{?}, \code{+?}, \code{??}] The \character{}, \character{+}, and \character{?} qualifiers are all \dfn{greedy}; they match as much text as possible. Sometimes this behaviour isn't desired; if the RE \regexp{<.>} is matched against \code{'

title

'}, it will match the entire string, and not just \code{'

'}. Adding \character{?} after the qualifier makes it perform the match in \dfn{non-greedy} or \dfn{minimal} fashion; as \emph{few} characters as possible will be matched. Using \regexp{.

?} in the previous expression will match only \code{'

'}.

Here the same in rst:

*?, +?, ?? The '\*', '+', and '?' qualifiers are all :dfn:greedy; they match as much text as possible. Sometimes this behaviour isn't desired; if the RE :regexp:<.\*> is matched against '<H1>title</H1>', it will match the entire string, and not just '<H1>'. Adding '?' after the qualifier makes it perform the match in :dfn:non-greedy or :dfn:minimal fashion; as few characters as possible will be matched. Using :regexp:.\*? in the previous expression will match only '<H1>'.

IMO that pair of examples shows clearly that, in this application, reST is not an improvement over LaTeX in terms of readability/ writability of source. It's probably not worse, although I can't help muttering "EIBTI". In particular I find the "'...'" construct horribly unreadable because it makes it hard to find the Python syntax in all the reST.

I don't think that's an argument against switching to reST, though. Georg's site speaks for itself. Kudos!

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