[Python-Dev] Re: Docutils/reStructuredText is ready to process PEPs

[Ka-Ping Yee]

On Wed, 31 Jul 2002, David Goodger wrote:
> I hereby formally request permission to deploy Docutils for PEPs on
> Python.org.  Here's a deployment plan for your consideration:

I have just read the specification:

    http://docutils.sourceforge.net/spec/rst/reStructuredText.html

It took a long time.  Perhaps it seems not so big to others, but
my personal opinion would be to recommend against this proposal
until the specification fits in, say, 1000 lines and can be absorbed
in ten minutes.  For me, it violates the fits-in-my-brain principle:
the spec is 2500 lines long, and supports six different kinds of
references and five different kinds of lists (even lists with roman
numerals!).  It also violates the one-way-to-do-it principle:
for example, there are a huge variety of ways to do headings,
and two different syntaxes for drawing a table.

I am not against structured text processing systems in general.
I think that something of this flavour would be a great solution
for PEPs and docstrings, and that David has done an impressive
job on RST.  It's just that RST is much too big (for me).


-- ?!ng

"This code is better than any code that doesn't work has any right to be."
    -- Roger Gregory, on Xanadu