[Doc-SIG] using the same delimiter on the left and right..

[Ken Manheimer]

On Thu, 29 Mar 2001, Goodger, David wrote:

> some warts (who doesn't? :-) and could use improvement (who can't? :-). It's
> sometimes hard to be objective, to see the warts, if they're too close,
> especially if you're used to them and love them dearly.

I agree.  In fact, i'm very frustrated with the ST implementation on
zope.org - classic - and haven't had time to play with STNG, so can't be
sure that it solves all my complaints.  And i understand better guidos
complaints - there are some compromises in ST as currently formulated that
seriously get in the way of expressing what you mean to express, which is
unacceptable.  My hope is that it's fixable!

As i've been saying, my sense is that tony and and edward seem to me to be
asking the right questions and trying to make the right choices.  Maybe
this discussion will help inform that effort - i'm just trying to see that
it doesn't simply dissuade them from trying.  And i think the committee
process, once it gets a certain momentum, can make it too easy to dismiss
an approach that could be key to developing a good solution.

> Specifically, I was referring to the conflicting use of ' -- ' in ST for
> definition/descriptive lists versus its common use in texts as em-dashes.
> Somebody mentioned forcing people to use it for DL's only. If it's in common
> use for one thing, I can't see using it for another. I think that
> single-quotes for literals is another conflict, a wart that, if removed, may
> bring us one step closer to my stated goal. Adding an escape mechanism is a
> must, but you may see it as adding a wart. One man's wart is another man's
> beauty mark.

Actually, i think that's stretching the metaphor a bit!-) :-)  But i do
agree - there are some hard trade-offs that need to be made here, to come
up with something that does not interfere with plain-text expressiveness,
while also determining markup in an uncluttered, unambiguous way. I'm
afraid i don't have much more to offer than that...

Ken
klm@digicool.com