PEP 287: reStructuredText Standard Docstring Format

[John Roth]

"David Goodger" <goodger at users.sourceforge.net> wrote in message
news:B8CEABB2.20C5A%goodger at users.sourceforge.net...
> Here's a serious proposal, safe to post now that April Fool's is over.
> Please read & comment.
>

Given the complexity of what has to be done, it seems
reasonably minimal, and reasonably readable. I don't
particularly like the table syntax, (it's too much typing
for my taste) but I don't have a reasonable alternative.

The one question I've got is very, very basic:

why is it in a docstring? Lots of people use docstrings for
relatively short, online prompts. Some other mechanism should
exist for extensive documentation that is intended for translation
to some other format for eventual printing or display independent
of the program.

I much prefer not to have this stuff in the compiled
module.

John Roth