[Python-Dev] status of development documentation

[Josiah Carlson]

"Fredrik Lundh" <fredrik at pythonware.com> wrote:
> 
> Josiah Carlson wrote:
> 
> > > yeah, because using something that everyone else uses would of course
> > > not be the python way.
> >
> > No, because ReST is significantly easier to learn and use than basically
> > every other markup language I've gotten my hands on.
> 
> I'm not really interested in optimizing for you, I'm interested in optimizing
> for everyone else.  They already know HTML.  They don't know ReST, and
> I doubt they care about it (how many blogs accept ReST for comments?)

I'm not suggesting that anyone optimize for me.  Re-read my comment. 
Did you re-read it?  Off the top of my head, I can't think of an easier
markup to learn or use that provides a variety of output.  Can you?  Can
anyone?  If so, I'm ready to listen.  Until then, I'm standing by my
opinion that ReST is the easiest language to learn and use for right now,
which is MY criteria for selecting a documentation language.  Not yours? 
Ok, we just have different criteria for selecting a language for
documentation, so please stop suggesting that I want everyone to
"optimize for [me]".

Now, this is documentation for a language and its standard library.  But
since you brought up blogs, should we be offering LJ tags (in use by ~4
million active LJ users), BBCode (used by 10s of millions), or wiki
syntax for markup? In my opinion, marketshare means close to nothing. If
we were going by marketshare, we'd be documenting Python with Java, and
only developing on Windows.


 - Josiah