[Doc-SIG] Documentation markup & processing / PEPs

[Tony J Ibbs (Tibs)]

David Goodger wrote:
> In what contexts do you need a non-breaking space?

Hmm. As always, I don't have a proper example to hand. Strings are
always an obvious example (although such are, of course, most likely to
occur in block literals, where spaces *are* preserved).

If one has tables, then something like:

	+-----------+---------+
	| String    | Meaning |
	+===========+=========+
	| `"  x "`  | One     |
      | `" x  "`  | Two     |
	+-----------+---------+

(yes, I know that's doubtless "drawn" wrongly) might be an example - the
number of spaces is plainly being used significantly, and this *is* the
sort of thing one might want to do in a doc string.

> One area reStructuredText doesn't touch is character sets or
> (SG|HT|X)ML-character-entity-equivalents.
>   can be considered part of markup or of character sets/entities.
> Suggestions?

Hmm - I would be against introducing XML character entities (for two
reasons - firstly because we don't want to be tied to XML, and secondly
because if people see *one* XML-ism, then they may assume others
"work"). Oh, and thirdly because they break the "the bare text should be
readable" principle of StructuredText, which is STILL the most important
reason for going this route.

> One point: I believe some time ago you thought that you could
> get away with using inline literals for non-breaking spaces::
>
>     no`` ``break

Yes - I rather liked that, but as I recall Guido said it was a nasty
trick he didn't like. Ho hum (and, as you say, it doesn't work in your
current scheme, nor would it have worked in the earlier scheme).

To clarify - I can probably put up with not having non-breaking spaces
in "ordinary" text (although I say that reluctantly, because I feel
they're useful - but then we're not trying for an all powerful
typesetting system), but I feel that we really *do* need them in literal
text.

Tibs

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Tony J Ibbs (Tibs)      http://www.tibsnjoan.co.uk/
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