On 11 October 2012 05:58, Jens Getreu <[email protected]> wrote: > Hi Lex, > > Am Mittwoch, 10. Oktober 2012 10:43:11 UTC+2 schrieb Lex Trotman: >> >> Hi Jens, >> >> You clearly do not understand open source software. Asciidoc was >> developed by someone who had a need and was then made available for others >> to use and contribute to. >> Asciidoc is a translator to html and docbook. That is its purpose, not >> as a document generation system with rendering capability. >> > It *is* already one ;) >
Well, maybe for HTML, but it does not include any of the docbook toolchains or libreoffice so it does not produce chunked HTML, PDF etc a2x is just a shell that runs some toolchains and does some cleanup, it is not in any way a rendering tool, even if some people confuse its purpose. > > >> It is not in a "competition" with Rest or any of the other markups out >> there, nor does it measure success by a head count. Nor does it need to >> continually re-define its mission statement to capture new markets or to >> derive a sustainable competitive advantage. It exists because it is useful >> for its purpose, and that purpose continues to be needed by its developer >> and contributors. >> > > People decide between *AsciiDoc* and *ReStructuredText*. *AsciiDoc* is > clearly the better markup language. Why not making this excellent product > available and accessible for all? > If someone wants to make additional packagings available and has the time to do so and support it then they can. Asciidoc is GPL v2 anyone can re-distribute it in any combined package they want to. But it is unlikely that the asciidoc project will have the time to do so nor the resources to support it (see below). > > So you are suggesting that the project take on something clearly outside >> its mission, which duplicates existing specialist projects (dblatex & fop) >> and which significantly increases the workload on the project. >> > > Not necessarily. The main missing use case for "common people" is asciidoc > -> pdf and asciidoc -> odt. Unfortunately the first needs at least fop, > but the chain asciidoc -> odt -> pdf would do also. I think this is even > better, because beginners (as I am) never obtain exactly the layout they > need, so they will have to touch the *asciidoc* output in *LibreOffice*anyway > before printing or distributing. > It may be what a class of user wants, but that doesn't make it the asciidoc mission. > > Concerning the workload, covering this main use case only needs to include > the existing odf-backend code in the trunk distribution. The > asciidoc->odtoutput enables "common people" to produce > pdf from asciidoc without any big and complex infrastructure like *LaTeX*or > *Docbook*. And, they still can adjust the final output via *LibreOffice*. > The ODF backend is still experimental, it has many issues, some of which are in libreoffice, not the backend. It hasn't been updated for 6 months according to github. In general few people use it so it isn't well tested and it doesn't get many contributions. I presume it does what its originator needs, that is why it hasn't been touched, but if it is released to a general audience there will be much more support required, and it is not known if that can be provided. If it gathers more users and more contributors then the possibility of distributing it can always be re-considered, or the odt project could package asciidoc with itself. But it is always going to be a plugin, that is the technical solution for backends now. > > My impression reading the past posts about the subject is, if you accepted > the contribution of the odt backend author in your project, he would be > pleased to maintain his code. The common user would not have to bother > about incompatible plug-ins and could use *asciidoc* directly and easily. > Asciidoc is a very mature project, its resources and processes are geared to that, eg bug reports in the ML. It is not set up to take a load of new issues due to including an immature plugin. > > Besides, it would be really nice to have an editor with live preview like > *ReText* especially for beginners. For the moment it renders only * > markdown* and *ReStructuredText*. I do not think that adding support for > AsciiDoc is a big thing if they agree. Still it needs time, seeing my > workload for the moment it is not possible for me this year. > That would be really nice but it is completely outside the asciidoc mission statement. So get a group of like minded programmers together and create such an editor, or appropriate plugins to existing editors/ides would probably be easier. Cheers Lex > > Kind regards > > > > > Jens > > -- > You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups > "asciidoc" group. > To view this discussion on the web visit > https://groups.google.com/d/msg/asciidoc/-/CTKc7lxGrhoJ. > To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. > To unsubscribe from this group, send email to > [email protected]. > For more options, visit this group at > http://groups.google.com/group/asciidoc?hl=en. > -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "asciidoc" group. To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [email protected]. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/asciidoc?hl=en.
