World: r4wp

Robert, if it's extra work to make it work with earlier versions 
of OS X, then maybe you shouldn't use too much time on it. We can 
just upgrade to latest OS X, which at least I will eventually do 
at some point. Maybe some hardware can't be updated, I don't know.

Reagarding Saphirion's documentation - maybe it's silly question, 
but could you try to change extension from .mdp to .md and see what's 
the difference on GitHub? I'm sure that it would look a little bit 
better directly in the browser as at least syntex for headers is 
almost similar in MarkDown as in MakeDocPro.

Code block syntax is also same - 4 space or 1 tab indentation.

Hmmm... the syntax is a little bit different, but it's not too hard 
to change it to md.
Compare:

https://github.com/Oldes/documentation/blob/master/argpass.mdwith 
https://github.com/saphirion/documentation/blob/master/argpass.mdp

Even without header's modification and just changed extension produces 
more readable document:

https://github.com/Oldes/documentation/blob/master/arity.mdversus 
https://github.com/saphirion/documentation/blob/master/arity.mdp

I believe it's easier to modify MDP to be more compatible with rest 
of the world than waiting for world to adopt MDP. But it's your choise 
of course.

Ladislav, is the method you outlined for defining variadic functions 
is there a way not to have the variadic function not change the arity 
of any functions following the variadic function?


i.e. with the definition of 'sumn, as you have it, if you have the 
following in a script:

print sumn 1 2
print "hello"


The "hello" doesn't print. I guess this is because when Rebol is 
'do-ing the script, the 'print is returned by the variadic function 
and the 'do dialect somehow doesn't re-interpret that word with its 
following argument, but sees it as a no-argument 'print. 

If, on the other hand, you have:

print sumn 1 2

do print "hello"	;or if you have something like "foo" instead of 
the 'do

hello
 will be printed out as intended


Could you describe what is happening here since I'm not exactly sure 
I understand how Rebol is handling things? Among other things, how 
is it OK to invoke arg-adder without providing the one arg it expects 
when you have "return/redo :arg-adder?

(Probably the best group for this discussion is !REBOL3.)

I don't know if I should spam the message into a third group, but 
it's fine with me to move discussion there.

Oldes, I have a dream about an MDP2 that will start with Markdown 
compatibility. Actually, no, I have a spec document, but am not sure 
I should publish it yet.

Where are Saphirion sources?

Will be released later ....

Henrik, correct me if I'm wrong but isn't markdown just a text formatting 
system as opposed to a document formatting system like make-doc ?

Yes, but it seems to make sense to base body text on this and build 
the rest around it. MDP has a particular way to format body text, 
but we've found that it's hard to extend. I would like an MDP2 that 
much better is capable of outputting right down from a single paragraph 
of markdown to a full multi-page document.

well, to me it makes sense not to reinvent the world and just use 
an existing markup like asciidoc which is intended for documents

No one is going to convince the world to learn another markup language 
like mdp2

Another point of MDP2 is to retain the single-script ease of use 
that MDP has, as well as being REBOL based.

I think that you can do that with asciidoc too .. using Chris' emitter 
and parser

It would be really enough to have MDP accept MD's style of headings. 
It's just silly from the outside view to use extension .mdp instead 
of already supported .md. I know that mdp is better and more capable 
than md, but I don't think it's easy to change Github to use mdp. 
I'm quite lucky that my Rebol colorizer (even buggy a little bit) 
found it's way there, which was not straight at all.

It would be really enough to have MDP accept MD's style of headings.
 - are you referring to MakeDoc or MarkDown? :-)

He's saying that using %.md for your existing %.mdp documents would 
be enough to use the existing markdown colouriser

Unfortunately not enough to change extension. MDP is using === and 
--- for headers, where MarkDown is using ### http://daringfireball.net/projects/markdown/syntax

but at least it's better than nothing??

Although in the case of the broken R3 colouriser ... nothing is probably 
better :(

As much as I love makedoc, and as many docs as I have in that format, 
a more widely adopted standard that is close in syntax and features 
seems like the best option as a standard.

I am advocating also that we be pragmatic rebolers

ah, noticed Red's main git page uses some .md file. Thought that 
Github accepted our MD :-)

Is their md any less performant than mdp? As for me, +1 to accept 
some widely accepted format. Well, does anyone apart Git use .md?

Petr, it's used quite a bit these days. Just look around. I vote 
to go with a standard. Didn't we already have this discussion?

yes lets go on using VHS, not betamax or v2000. It is a bit similar. 
If mdp2 can be more flexible than MD and you can show it is as easy 
as MD and even do more with it, who needs to convince the world? 
The whole world is far from using MD now. There is a whole lot of 
undiscovered country left.

And if you can have mdp process MD doc's with very little adaptation 
(adding a kind of marker at the beginning) you can easily take over 
MD.

Arnold, yes, there are many competent document systems out there, 
but there hasn't been anyone that could be so easily plugged in and 
used as MakeDoc and MakeDocPro. I just want to move beyond their 
current limitations, so Saphirion can deliver professional, high-quality 
manuals to the customers.

AdrianS: I am not against that. Still I have my question of the feature 
comparison of MD vs MDP unanswered ...

So basically - is MDP so much better, that we can't switch to MD 
instead?

Pekr, I'll try to get a response from Robert, as he decides which 
way to go.

http://www.codinghorror.com/blog/2012/10/the-future-of-markdown.html

I found MarkDown a good thought, like mdp, and ther obviously has 
been put some clever thinkwork into it, but six hashes for a h6 tag? 
And the alternative underline with "====" and or "----" does not 
convince me what happens if you do not match the length of the header? 
It compensates? so why not 3 or four like in mdp?

if others might maky their stuff and claim it beind de-facto standard, 
we can as well ... not sure if markdown is more popular than what 
github is using for their .md, but we should either adhere, or make 
converters and go our own way, or even better - introduce some clever 
layer, which will allow to recognise their format and render it properly, 
while allowing .mdp to be more powerful

what I said, in other words ;)

my two cents.  

funny that all of these formats basically can be converted from one 
to the other in a few lines of parse.  


these text-based formats  may be super cool in non rebol scene, but 
I find this whole discussion about which equivalent to use... well 
... a bit anemic.


why not just use our own format internally and import from other 
formats at will... I mean really, its very easy to do.


I've been working with an extensible wiki format in QM and have been 
adding new things to it.  I don't see why we want to limit ourself 
to headers and titles and still wonder which one of the incapable 
formats to use.   are we using Rebol or are we trying to be as limited 
as all the others?  I mean, when I look at QM's wiki format I can 
add new specs in about 5 minutes, including supporting code which 
spits out html.  


 I think this kind of coding is something which must be leveraged 
 in any Open rebol project. let's allow people to import docs in whatever 
 format and manage them using something that makes sense for us?  
 including more expansive tags which are tailored for different sections 
 like a dictionnary, tutorials, traditional docs, guides, etc.

now you're talking maxim! Presentation stuff ;)

I've been rather dormant in many rebol spheres in the last months 
because I've been working a lot and most of it is commercial and 
private work, but I feel like its time for Rebolers to break out 
of their inferiority complex and show others that Rebol is better, 
more cutting edge than ever.  

And it still stays simple, overall, even in large projects.


I think the community has lost a bit of its resolve, and I am trying 
to make a point with the devcon.  Rebol has never gone away and its 
back on track.  


I think its up to everyone involved in public projects to promote 
this by actually playing on Its strengths.   I resisted the urge 
to build the site using public tools, and I think, Chris and I and 
building a super default framework just by catering to the needs 
of the devcon's web site.   Chris just added a news module to it 
(in one day).  we will show the site's internals at the devcon, showing 
how easy it really was to build up, using a centralized Git Repo 
to share the code and with the server, when ready for production.


Its ALL coded with REBOL.  at the devcon, we will look at packaging 
QM with cheyenne, Remark and making sure it all works with my web 
service API... with this l think the rebol community will have a 
pretty nice framework to rival RR and others.

Thanks for posting that link Ted!


I, too, want an all-REBOL toolchain and format. However, I view MD/MDP 
as a very basic format for plain communication and HTML generation. 
It is not a "structured" document format.  And while extensible is 
good, we can probably come up with a spec that outlines all that 
might need to be handled, to help guide a baseline design. e.g., 
while it's XML, DocBook was well thought out IIRC.


I admit that one of my problems with makedoc, historically, is consistent 
behavior and support for images and links. 

Don't forget Gab's QML either.

I haven't used AsciiDoc, but it looks like it might be a nice standard 
to use, at a glance. I haven't looked at enough AsciiDoc source to 
say if I like the format though. It didn't grab me the first time 
I looked at it, but I'll look again. The header syntax puts me off 
a bit. http://powerman.name/doc/asciidocis a cheat sheet.

Pekr, Markdown _is_ what Github is using for .md files.

Arnold, if you underline headers with === oder --- in headers that's 
sufficient. No need to match the header. I don't like the hash syntax 
either, but when I hear talk about h6: "remember that Feynman covered 
all of physics [..] with only two levels of document hierarchy".

@Gregg, asciidoc uses a header *because* it's a document formatting 
tool.  There's a variety of styles supported .. and it's a pain to 
try and remember but I guess it gets easier with use.  The point 
for me is that it provides entry to docbook and then multiple other 
formats whereas makedoc/pro are stuck in a single page style html 
which is really past it for any serious documentation.

Sure you can roll your own, but if we want other people to learn 
it, you're running up hill all the time.

Pekr, I have several markdown docs now in the document repository, 
and they display quite nicely on github

For people in Windows Word World (I know I know ... double pane), 
MarkdownPad 2 was released on 05-Mar-2013 with standard and Pro version.

The pro version includes GFM support.  Pro costs $14.95 USD for a 
single user licence.
http://markdownpad.com/compare.html

This is the kind of stuff that I use because time isn't free and 
Git seems to be the place to converge to.
[If already posted (or hate windows), ignore immediately.]