Re:Sphinxtr: Creating a Portable PhD Thesis
by jterrace on Thursday October 04, 2012 @11:33PM
(#4615560)
You've never used ReST but you somehow know it's not good for typesetting research papers?
Re:Sphinxtr: Creating a Portable PhD Thesis
by cmccabe on Friday October 05, 2012 @03:53AM
(#4616022)
I used it a little bit back when I still wrote Python. It seemed a lot like HTML, but much terser, and whitespace-sensitive. ReST could do the same kind of stuff as HTML: build bullet lists, create tables, italic text, and so forth. However, since I had already learned HTML, learning another language that did the same thing felt like a waste of time. I fully believe that Restructured Text is a better markup language than HTML in some ways; however, I simply don't care because the differences are minor, and HTML is so much more powerful.
On the other hand, TeX was developed by Donald Knuth, a guy who spent his entire life doing research and writing papers about it. It has excellent math support, and is a true semantic language. I've written a few papers in TeX and been very happy with it.
Anyway, if RestructuredText were good at typesetting research papers, there would be no need for this project, would there?
Re:Sphinxtr: Creating a Portable PhD Thesis
by jterrace on Friday October 05, 2012 @11:58AM
(#4617391)
You're confusing the language with the build system. LaTeX wouldn't be very useful without the awesome build system. This project is a build system for producing both high-quality HTML and high-quality PDF (through latex) with a single, high-level ReST markup language. It also uses latex formulas for math.
Incidentially, semantics, not presention, was originally the point behind HTML, but it got warped and twisted over time into a kinda-sort presentation-oriented language.
restructuredtext, on the other hand, was originally developed to create documentation for Python programs. It might be good for that purpose (wouldn't know; haven't used it.) But it's certainly not good for typesetting mathematics, research papers, academic quotations and so forth. Hence the large amount of wheel reinvention going on here. It's a little bit like writing your research paper using JavaDoc comments. Sphincter indeed.