[Doc-SIG] reST block quotes

[fantasai]

Beni Cherniavsky wrote:
  >
 > Then note that "-- " is the standard singnature separtor.  Since then it's
 > alone on the line, this is not an issue, just a point to document.
 >
 > Also note that I use " -- " for a long dash -- probably a LaTeX-induced
 > habit; I saw some other people writing so.  Stupid word wrapping can well
 > put "-- " at the beginning of a line in running text.  Again not an issue,
 > just document that "-- " must come after an empty line (?).

Would using three dashes solve these problems?

 > About email reading, also note that ">>> " becomes ambiguos between
 > doctest blocks and some email clients that compact nested "> " quoting by
 > omiting the spaces.

Yes, that is true. That means either quoted blocks would
have to be implemented as an option, defaulting to 'off'
for backwards-compatability, or at least one space must
be required between quote characters.

Requiring at least one space before the quote character
might not be a bad idea. It improves readability IMO.

 > And while we are there, how about "initials> " quoting?

That can be dealt with later. It's not nearly as common,
and it's even less important for processing documents
(as opposed to emails and newsgroup posts), which is what
most reST files are.

 > Also the "On Someday, Random Writer wrote:" is probably an
 > attribution too.

It is, but it's not practical to parse that since
people use so many different formats. It would have
to be treated as a paragraph, which really isn't
that bad.

 > Now how do you handle a quote that's broken in the middle and resumed?

As multiple blockquotes. How would you do it with the
current syntax?

Come to think of it, the current syntax can't really
handle nested blockquotes well, can it? Not if there's
a quote at the beginning of another quote.

~fantasai