Preliminaries

For information about the other sprints going on at PyConDC2004, please see SprintPlan2004.

For introductory information, please see the 2003 SprintPlan.

Duration

The sprints at PyCon2004 are to be held from March 20 (Saturday) through March 23 (Tuesday), totalling 4 days. How long should the Docutils sprint be? It probably depends on the participants, so please voice your opinions here or [mailto:goodger@python.org email me].

Sprinters

How many participants? Please [mailto:goodger@python.org email me] or edit this page directly if you'd like to participate.

• David Goodger (coach) [mailto:goodger@python.org send me email]

Sponsorship

This sprint and my participation at PyCon2004 are being sponsored by the [http://www.python.org/psf Python Software Foundation (PSF)], [http://WingIDE.com Archaeopteryx Software], and individual contributors. Thank you all!

In order to minimize expenses, I'm hoping to find someone willing to put me up in a spare bed, sofa, or patch of floor, from March 19 to March 27. If you can help, please [mailto:goodger@python.org send me email] as soon as possible. Thanks!

Sprint Topic Ideas

What would participants like to accomplish? Choose from among the ideas below or add new ones. Register your votes below, and feel free to comment.

The sprint should begin with an introduction to Docutils and reStructuredText: their purpose, future direction, and current implementation. How long should it be? Should there be a long preliminary lecture covering a lot of ground, or a minimal overview (with the possibility of further dicsussions as needed)?

Here are ideas for the sprint, in no particular order:

• Python source reader (autodocumentation subsystem). Ideas:

  • [http://docutils.sf.net/spec/pep-0258.html#python-source-reader PEP 258]

  • [http://docutils.sf.net/spec/notes.html#python-source-reader notes]

  • [http://docutils.sf.net/docutils/readers/python/ DavidG's module parser code (incomplete)]

  • [http://docutils.sf.net/sandbox/sandbox/davidg/pysource_reader DavidG's sandbox code (incomplete)]

  • [http://docutils.sf.net/sandbox/sandbox/tibs/ Tibs' sandbox code (incomplete)]

• Test framework -- extend unittest with support for packages of test modules (i.e., integrate [http://docutils.sf.net/test/package_unittest.py this] into unittest.py).

• DocPy (Python's dialect of LaTeX) writer completion -- would allow easier entry for documentation newbies, "make authorship more accessible" ([http://docutils.sf.net/sandbox/dkuhlman/ initial implementation]).

• HTML fragment writer -- establish API (useful for ht2html and templating systems). ([http://docutils.sf.net/spec/notes.html#html-fragments Notes], and [http://docutils.sf.net/sandbox/oliverr/ht/ related work].)

• Other writers:

  • OpenOffice.org ([http://docutils.sf.net/sandbox/aahz/OO/ Aahz's sandbox] & [http://docutils.sf.net/sandbox/pobrien/OpenOffice/ Patrick O'Brien's sandbox]; which is based on which?)

  • DocBook ([http://docutils.sf.net/sandbox/oliverr/docbook/ Oliver Rutherfurd's sandbox])

  • RTF

• Interpreted text [http://docutils.sf.net/spec/notes.html#role-bindings role bindings].

• [http://docutils.sf.net/spec/notes.html#large-documents Large document] issues, including [http://docutils.sf.net/spec/notes.html#object-numbering-and-object-references formal elements].

• Nested inline markup -- may require new inline markup parser with proper tokenization & lexing. Or stack-based. Currently under discussion on the [http://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/docutils-develop docutils-develop mailing list].

• [http://docutils.sf.net/spec/notes.html#math-markup Math markup].

• Complete [http://docutils.sf.net/spec/doctree.html "The Docutils Document Tree"] reference doc.

• Wikis ([http://docutils.sf.net/sandbox/ianb/wiki/ Ian Bicking's sandbox], [http://docutils.sourceforge.net/FAQ.html#are-there-any-wikis-that-use-restructuredtext-syntax FAQ entry]). If MoinMoin is python.org's official wiki, it would be nice if it fully supported reStructuredText ;-).

• [http://docutils.sf.net/spec/notes.html#bugs Squash bugs]

• Add internationalization to [http://docutils.sf.net/spec/notes.html#footer-boilerplate-text footer boilerplate text].

• [http://docutils.sf.net/spec/notes.html#adaptable-file-extensions Adaptable file extensions].

• [http://docutils.sf.net/tools/editors/emacs Emacs reStructuredText mode].

• [http://docutils.sf.net/spec/semantics.html Docstring semantics].

• More ideas in the [http://docutils.sf.net/spec/notes.html#to-do to-do list].

Comments

Please feel free to add any comments you like. Include your name for feedback; anonymous comments OK too. I hope to see you at PyCon! -- David Goodger