[Python-Dev] Re: interlocking dependencies on the path to a release

[Nick Coghlan]

Martin v. Löwis wrote:
> Phillip J. Eby wrote:
> 
>> I've dabbled in the guts of latex2html before; it's certainly not pretty.
> 
> 
> I wouldn't look into the source of latex2html at all. Instead, I would
> rewrite it from scratch, worrying only that the output stays the same
> (or sufficiently similar).

Being able to easily build the current docs on a Windows system would be 
convenient. Even a full install of Cygwin doesn't include all the tools 
needed to build by the current process (latex2html is the main offender 
- I believe it *can* be made to work with Cygwin, but it's a separate 
download that requires a few other tweaks, and installation of a couple 
more support tools)

>> IMO a better long term option might be to use the Python docutils and 
>> migrate to reStructuredText, since there are a bevy of backends 
>> available for latex, PDF, HTML, etc.  They would probably need more 
>> work before they'll be suitable to handle the entire doc generation 
>> process, though.
> 
> I'm not convinced this would be a good idea. Having TeX as the primary
> source allows to produce well-formatted printed documentation.

A _reST to TeX converter that added the extra typesetting info might be 
an interesting tool.

So things with simple typesetting needs can be written in _reST, while 
complex typesetting is still possible with all the power of TeX. (I 
don't see how _reST could be given the same typesetting power without 
losing its elegant simplicity).

Cheers,
Nick.

-- 
Nick Coghlan               |     Brisbane, Australia
Email: ncoghlan at email.com  | Mobile: +61 409 573 268