reST Wiki mode, was [Doc-SIG] Suggestions for reST "modes"

[David Goodger]

on 2001-08-06 4:53 AM, Tony J Ibbs (Tibs) (tony@lsl.co.uk) wrote:
> (David - maybe we *should* be having a colon after a footnote target - I
> find it very confusing not to - I keep typing them and then removing
> them. Since one can (sort of) consider them as being like "`" and "`"
> around a multi-word link name, does that make sense?)

My reasons for no colon after a footnote label:

- Footnote labels don't use colons in common usage.

- To differentiate footnotes from hyperlink targets. Hyperlink targets
  point to an internal element or an external URI; they "map" the
  hyperlink name to the location. The colon is a mnemonic for "maps to".
  Footnotes *contain* the information being referred to from elsewhere;
  no mapping is taking place.

- The brackets (in conjunction with the leading underscore) are enough
  to signify the role of the footnote label. ``.. _[label]:`` would be
  excessive.

- Precedence from StructuredText.

-- 
David Goodger    dgoodger@bigfoot.com    Open-source projects:
 - Python Docstring Processing System: http://docstring.sourceforge.net
 - reStructuredText: http://structuredtext.sourceforge.net
 - The Go Tools Project: http://gotools.sourceforge.net