Re: Kernel docs: muddying the waters a bit

[Russel Winder <russel@winder.org.uk>]

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On Thu, 2016-03-03 at 15:23 -0800, Keith Packard wrote:
> 
[…]
> However, I think asciidoc has two serious problems:
> 
>   1) the python version (asciidoc) appears to have been abandoned in
>      favor of the ruby version. 

This is I think true, however the Java-based tool chain Asciidoctor is
I believe the standard bearer for ASCIIdoc these days, albeit called
ASCIIdoctor.

>   2) It really is just a docbook pre-processor. Native html/latex
> output
>      is poorly supported at best, and exposes only a small subset of
> the
>      full capabilities of the input language.

This is not true. Yes ASCIIDoc started as a DocBook/XML frontend so as
to use a sane :-) markup language rather than XML (XML is a notation
for consenting computers only), but the current ASCIIDoctor toolchain
deals very well in direct HTML and PDF generation, without needing a
DocBook/XML toolchain. 

> As such, we would have to commit to using the ruby version and either
> committing to fixing the native html output backend or continuing to
> use
> the rest of the docbook toolchain.

Or trial the JVM-based ASCIIdoctor which is what the projects I am
involved with chose to use. Perhaps as an example I can give you http:/
/gpars.website (it's a redirector) all the HTML and PDF is generated
from ASCIIDoc source using ASCIIDoctor driven with a Gradle build
system. This is still very much a work in progress (by Jim Northrop,
not me currently), but I like it.

> We could insist on using the python version, of course. I spent a bit
> of
> time hacking that up to add 'real' support for a table-of-contents in
> the native HTML backend and it looks like getting those changes
> upstreamed would be reasonably straightforward. However, we'd end up
> 'owning' the code, and I'm not sure we want to.

If the Python version is really not being maintained, I would suggest
that unless you want to take over the project and be it's maintainer,
you would be better advised to use a different version.

-- Russel.=============================================================================Dr Russel Winder      t: +44 20 7585 2200   voip: sip:russel.winder@ekiga.net41 Buckmaster Road    m: +44 7770 465 077   xmpp: russel@winder.org.ukLondon SW11 1EN, UK   w: www.russel.org.uk  skype: russel_winder

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