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Re: [OT] reStructured Text real world usage

On 14-Apr-08, at 9:47 PM, Tzafrir Cohen wrote:

On Mon, Apr 14, 2008 at 12:34:00PM -0400, Brian McKee wrote:

On 12-Apr-08, at 6:16 PM, Tzafrir Cohen wrote:

On Thu, Apr 10, 2008 at 08:54:40AM -0400, Brian McKee wrote:

On 9-Apr-08, at 11:12 PM, Amit Uttamchandani wrote:

Inspired by the easy to use wiki syntax, I've been looking around
for similar markups that allow for basic "rich text" output.



I actually use a wiki currently -  tiddlyWiki - and I edit the text
in it with Vim using the It's All Text plugin for Firefox.
Since it's a one page portable wiki (no server required) it's
completely cross platform - I can carry it around on a USB stick and 
edit it where ever I'm at.



Mixing code and data is not my preffered method.



It's not really -  Is a pdf file mixing data and code?  or latex?





LaTeX and PostScript (though not PDF) allow a similar the same level
of programability that HTML+Javascript (as used in many browsers) does. 


It is not often abused as in the way it is done in in tiddlyWiki . If
you have complex (La)TeX code in your document, you'd probably make it a 
separate style / package.



Wiki syntax is less 'code' then those - and the raw data is still
there as entered when you hit the edit button the next time.



What happens when you find a bug in the code that implements the
interpetation of the wiki?


Then you re-edit it - the original text is still there unmangled.


And how do I know that the document you give me doesn't really log all
of my details to your server? I have to re-inspect the code with each
and every document. It is javascript that is run locally on my system
and hence my browser assumes it is a bit more trustworthy.

Indeed tiddlyWiki.org is hosted on a mediawiki.


The tiddlyWiki itself is self-contained and runs fine off-line,
(although there are plug ins to make it run on a server)
but I grant you it's not easily verifiable....


I use it because I've come to rely pretty heavily on the easy linking
to both internal and external data that wiki's provide.

Latex and AsciiDoc (I looked very quickly) have that 'compile as a
separate step' process I find irritating.   My output is in the
format I need it in as soon as I hit the 'done' button, and still
ready to be edited when I hit the 'edit' button.  Granted,  I don't
have the wide range of output options provided by markup/compile
cycle setups like Latex, but I don't need them....


But then again, everybody must use your code to view your data.


I agree with you it's quite unsuitable for redistribution.
When I do need to export data from it I use 'print to pdf' and distribute the pdf. Not as flexible as the other systems, but it's almost exclusively my notes and to-do lists, it's not intended to be sent anywhere. I find it handy for the OP's use case - taking notes. When it's a very often edited document (e.g. I edit my to-do list a dozen times a day or more) the 'make' step is too much, and the html rendering I have is all I need. 

Hope that explains the different pros and cons as I see them.

Brian

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