[Doc-SIG] what about OpenDocument?

[Chad Whitacre]

Dear All,

Attached is the documentation for the random module in ODT format. The 
file includes paragraph, character, and list styles for Python objects. 
Also attached is a script for playing with this ODT documentation.

Here are my conclusions from this brief foray:

   - Once we had a stylesheet, ODT would make it *much* easier to write
     documentation: everyone knows how to use a word processor.

   - However, the stylesheet itself is almost too easy to change. Any
     tools would depend on it for their API, so it needs to be stable.

   - OOo is not super-flexible when it comes to styles. I don't see that
     you can nest paragraph-level styles, e.g.

   - The way that OOo stores information is not the easiest to work with:
     e.g.:

         <func>foo([</func><param>foo</param><func>])</func>

     rather than:

         <func>foo([<param>foo</param>])</func>


Bottom line: this is a hacked-up, watered-down, non-robust version of an 
XML solution. Too easy for authors, and too hard for tool-smiths. I'd 
say it might be an improvement over the status quo, but not enough of 
one to warrant switching.



chad
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