Re: RFD: tables in documentation

From: Jeff King <peff@peff.net>
Date: May 25, 2010, 09:46 UTC
Message-ID: <20100525094621.GA984@coredump.intra.peff.net>
In-Reply-To: <4BDD7E96.2050603@drmicha.warpmail.net>

[This is an old message, but I'm going through some old threads on my todo, and I owed you a response.]

On Sun, May 02, 2010 at 03:31:02PM +0200, Michael J Gruber wrote:

Show 7 quoted lines

> > Conceptually I am in favor of semantic markup where possible. I find the
> > resulting manpage a little harder to read, though. Is it possible for us
> > to style it a bit more (e.g., such a simple table looks better, IMHO,
> > without ascii-art borders).
> 
> I really don't know (about styling docbook's tables). We can easily
> switch off the outer borders in AsciiDoc.

I do think the border-less table that you presented later in the thread looks good, modulo the row-span issue.

And:

> > Did you put the source up anywhere? I didn't see it, but it would be
> > interesting to see how painful it is to write.
> 
> http://repo.or.cz/w/git/mjg.git/shortlog/refs/heads/doc-use-tables

I think the source remains pretty readable.

So assuming you can solve the row-span problem, I think it is a positive change.

> The docbook part of the toolchain makes me sick whenever I have to look
> at it. I really wish AsciiDoc could output roff straight away. I find it

Yes, I have also wished for that many times.

-Peff