Re: RFC: Better formatting for long descriptions
Hi,
I think we need to enumerate some goals for this proposed
change. Here is a start:
- Minimal disruption for current packages. The impact should be
measured by numbers of packages impacted
+ Any specification of which of *, +, - to use as th first level item
will impact more packages than not specifying it, by several
hundred
+ The same is true for specifying the mark used for second level list
items
+ Specifying exact number of spaces will also hit current packages,
and will be a source of errors in the future.
- Ability to recognize and render the following logical entities, in
decreasing order of importance:
+ unordered lists
+ ordered lists
+ emphasis
+ strong emphasis
+ definition lists
+ hypertext links
+ underlines, and strike throughs
- Readability for people looking at non-enhanced renditions, i.e.,
using less on the Packages file. Sticking to widely known
conventions, using the same conventions that peple are used to using
in email, and Wikis, is a plus.
- Ease of use for description writers.
Again, sticking with standards that people already know and use is
better than making our own, more restrictive standards
- Not adding hugely to bloat for the Packages file
This kinda excludes verbose markup like XML (which would have failed
the readability test too)
At this point, I would say that Markdown/Resstructued text meets
most of the goals above, as long as we restrict the markup to the list
above:
* unordered lists
* ordered lists
* emphasis
* strong emphasis
* definition lists
* hypertext links
* underlines, and strike throughs
manoj
--
"If we can't fix it -- we'll fix it so nobody can." Gibbons
Manoj Srivastava <srivasta@debian.org> <http://www.debian.org/~srivasta/>
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