DLang Spec rewrite (?)

[Andrei Alexandrescu]

On 5/25/13 9:22 PM, Borden wrote:
> 1) Allowing sections to be defined using == Heading == or === Heading
> === instead of $(HEADING ) or variants. The advantage that Wiki syntax
> has over macro-syntax is that it automatically works out the section
> nesting (which is essential for building tables of contents in things
> such as, hint hint, eBooks) whereas macros can only do it if the
> subheadings are nested as arguments.

Not getting this at all. You can define in DDoc things like H1, H2, etc. 
or whatever you want.

Besides, you are proposing a bunch of... just sugar aimed at reading the 
text as is. That's not part of DDoc's charter. Besides, it does not add 
power (you can do the same with macros) and it makes everything awfully 
complicated. Do you want to be the guy writing the parser for all that 
sugar?

If ddoc has anything going for it, it's simplicity of syntax. It has 
like 5 syntactic rules in total. Parsing ddoc is quite simple. What 
vexes me is that all the sugar you propose goes against what you opened 
with, which was:

> I ask, therefore, what opposition would there be to me rewriting the
> DLang Spec files into another format that will be easier to parse and
> compile for the website, PDF, Latex, eBook and other formats?

I really don't understand. Far as I can tell you are trying to 
accomplish a well-defined goal: compile the spec in ebook format. Then 
every step you're sketching on the way there takes you just away from 
your goal.

We can generate LaTeX from ddoc (there's a pull request for doing it 
even better) and I can hypothesize that the shortest path between where 
we are and what you're trying to accomplish is a few dozens of macro 
definitions. Did you try doing that and failed?


Andrei