Bug#628915: ITP: doconce -- document once, include anywhere

[Johannes Ring <johannes.ring@gmail.com>]

Package: wnpp
Severity: wishlist
X-Debbugs-CC: debian-devel@lists.debian.org

Package name: doconce
Version: 0.5
Upstream authors: Hans Petter Langtangen <hpl@simula.no>
URL: http://doconce.googlecode.com/
License: BSD-3-clause
Description: document once, include anywhere

 Doconce is two things:
 .
 1. Doconce is a very simple and minimally tagged markup language that
 looks like ordinary ASCII text (much like what you would use in an
 email), but the text can be transformed to numerous other formats,
 including HTML, Wiki, LaTeX, PDF, reStructuredText (reST), Sphinx,
 Epytext, and also plain text (where non-obvious formatting/tags are
 removed for clear reading in, e.g., emails). From reStructuredText
 you can go to XML, HTML, LaTeX, PDF, OpenOffice, and from the latter
 to RTF and MS Word.  (An experimental translator to Pandoc is under
 development, and from Pandoc one can generate Markdown, reST, LaTeX,
 HTML, PDF, DocBook XML, OpenOffice, GNU Texinfo, MediaWiki, RTF,
 Groff, and other formats.)
 .
 2. Doconce is a working strategy for never duplicating information.
 Text is written in a single place and then transformed to a number of
 different destinations of diverse type (software source code,
 manuals, tutorials, books, wikis, memos, emails, etc.).  The Doconce
 markup language support this working strategy.  The slogan is: "Write
 once, include anywhere".
 .
 Here are some Doconce features:
 .
  * Doconce markup does include tags, so the format is more tagged
    than Markdown and Pandoc, but less than reST, and very much less
    than LaTeX and HTML.
  * Doconce can be converted to plain *untagged* text, often desirable
    for computer programs and email.
  * Doconce has good support for copying in parts of computer code,
    say in examples, directly from the source code files.
  * Doconce has full support for LaTeX math, and integrates very well
    with big LaTeX projects (books).
  * Doconce is almost self-explanatory and is a handy starting point
    for generating documents in more complicated markup languages,
    such as Google Wiki, LaTeX, and Sphinx. A primary application of
    Doconce is just to make the initial versions of a Sphinx or Wiki
    document.
  * Contrary to the similar Pandoc translator, Doconce integrates with
    Sphinx and Google Wiki. However, if these formats are not of
    interest, Pandoc is obviously a superior tool.
 .
 Doconce was particularly written for the following sample
 applications:
 .
  * Large books written in LaTeX, but where many pieces (computer
    demos, projects, examples) can be written in Doconce to appear in
    other contexts in other formats, including plain HTML, Sphinx, or
    MS Word.
  * Software documentation, primarily Python doc strings, which one
    wants to appear as plain untagged text for viewing in Pydoc, as
    reStructuredText for use with Sphinx, as wiki text when publishing
    the software at web sites, and as LaTeX integrated in, e.g., a
    thesis.
  * Quick memos, which start as plain text in email, then some small
    amount of Doconce tagging is added, before the memos can appear as
    MS Word documents or in wikis.