[Python-Dev] Re: Python-dev summary for 2002-09-01 to 2002-09-15

[David Goodger]

[David Goodger]
>> Please don't blame the markup!  By the time people see it, it's
>> been mutilated by mailers to the point where it's unrecognizable.
>> [...]  As the author, please take steps to prevent your document's
>> mutilation.

[Fran=E7ois Pinard]
> The message seems adequately formatted, as delivered here.

I'm seeing subtle things that you probably won't notice if you're not
used to writing reStructuredText.  (Which is as it should be -- easy
to read, even though some care must be taken in the writing.)

Specifically, the paragraph beginnng "This is the second summary" has
very strange indentation.  Every other line is indented by one space
(tab?).  The simplest explanation for this is that the whole thing was
supposed to be indented, but the lines were very long.

> This is a recurring problem, deciding how far maintainers or writers
> should keep in mind various broken software of the recipients.

I think the problem is earlier than my mail client.  The text I
received in my mailbox is identical (indentation is equally wonky) to
that on the web in the Python-dev archive:
http://mail.python.org/pipermail/python-dev/2002-September/028754.html.

> There is an equilibrium to reach, but the pressure is often undue on
> the authors, as recipients want them to take care of everything bad
> they see.

In this case, it's a document posted to mailing lists.  I don't think
it's too much to ask that mailer line wrapping be allowed for.  I
agree that long URLs must remain, but there shouldn't be a problem for
ordinary text.

--=20
David Goodger  <goodger@users.sourceforge.net>  Open-source projects:
  - Python Docutils: http://docutils.sourceforge.net/
    (includes reStructuredText: http://docutils.sf.net/rst.html)
  - The Go Tools Project: http://gotools.sourceforge.net/