[Zope3-dev] FWIW: I endorse reStructuredText

[Jeffrey P Shell]

On Wednesday, February 5, 2003, at 02:46  PM, Barry A. Warsaw wrote:

>>>>>> "TS" == Tres Seaver <tseaver@zope.com> writes:
>     TS> +1 for '.rst'.
>
> On the other hand, I now have to teach all my tools, not just my
> editor, what kind of files .rst files are:
>
>>>> import mimetypes
>>>> mimetypes.guess_type('.rst')
> (None, None)
>
> I'm betting that if I clicked on a .rst file with my browser it would
> show me a download dialog instead of displaying the human readable
> text, too.
>
> "Hmm, Fundamental mode -- but this isn't lisp!"
>
> Since none of these tools know anything about reST files, and since
> the format is intended to be human readable plain text, I think .txt
> is just fine.

I agree.  I've used reStructuredText recently on a couple of mid-sized 
(5-10 separate documents) documentation projects for customers.  On the 
second one, I tried going the .rst route, but had more problems than I 
ever did with .txt.  Most editors are (or should be) configurable 
enough that changing the helper mode(s) should just be a couple of 
keystrokes away.  I use this a lot when editing SQL Methods or Python 
Scripts via FTP in XEmacs *and* BBEdit.

Besides, reST doesn't need as much help as STX/STXNG or even Setext 
since indentation is used less frequently in reST.  And most Setext 
modes out there that don't try to do auto indentation should be 
sufficient for starting out with reST in an editor.  BBEdit 6.5 on Mac 
OS has this mode, and I was able to get a nice "function list" of all 
the headings in the document, down to a couple of levels at least.  
Beyond that, the basic formatting tools available in BBEdit were 
sufficient enough to format/reformat paragraphs as needed, whether I 
was in Setext mode or not.

+1 for .txt

Jeffrey P Shell, jeffrey@cuemedia.com