[Doc-SIG] Re: PEP 258: DPS Generic Implementation Details

[David Goodger]

on 2001-07-07 6:17 AM, Ralph Corderoy (ralph@inputplus.demon.co.uk) wrote:
> Of the various Wikis I found TWiki's
> plain text input format allows quite a lot of structure to be expressed
> whilst still being readable as plain text.  Perhaps it would present
> some ideas.

Link?

> One thing that it uses to good effect is significant whitespace.
> Something familiar to all :-)

Old argument; see the archives. For a tongue-in-cheek summary of a recent
thread, see: http://structuredtext.sf.net/spec/indentedsections.txt

> Allowing multiple docstring formats, whilst perhaps least contentious,
> does seem a little like trying to please everyone.

Read through the Doc-SIG archives and you'll see that there's never been
agreement on any one syntax. The DPS isn't concerned with which syntax is
used, but is a generic framework. Saying, "the standard syntax will be X" is
a surefire guarantee that the system would never get anywhere.

I'm working on one syntax (reStructuredText), which may or may not
eventually become *the* syntax, and simultaneously working out the details
of the DPS interfaces. "Over time or through decree, a standard format or
set of formats should emerge." By allowing multiple formats/syntaxes, we
separate the components. In this context, it's "together we fail, divided we
may just have a chance."

-- 
David Goodger    dgoodger@bigfoot.com    Open-source projects:
 - Python Docstring Processing System: http://docstring.sf.net
 - reStructuredText: http://structuredtext.sf.net
 - The Go Tools Project: http://gotools.sf.net