Re: [PATCH v3 2/4] Documentation/atomic_ops.txt: convert to ReST markup

[Peter Zijlstra]

On Mon, Nov 28, 2016 at 09:44:42AM +0100, Daniel Vetter wrote:

> > 
> > Why change them? What was wrong with txt to begin with?
> 
> In my opinion good docs matter, and one of the key things is to be able to
> cross reference stuff.

Well, good docs begin with useful content; and many docs lack that.
Fixing that would be a much more useful thing to do.

In any case, I've never had any problems with typing things like: "go
read: Documentation/file.txt for more information.".

Also, what text editor supports cross references at all then? With the
filename I can use 'gf' in vim to open it up in a new buffer and go read
that.

> Another concern some core kernel folks raised is that the .rst markup was
> too heavy-handed, and makes the text much harder to read. Christoph called
> it "cat spew". That can be fixed with a much lighter-handed conversion
> (and 2nd patch iteration was acceptable for Christoph).

Very much agreed, once a file is no longer readable with less or the
text editor of your choice, it as good doesn't exist at all. So I very
much worry about RST even supporting such heavy markup that the end
result is unreadable.

Basically, if a file isn't usable from within a 'normal' text editor, it
doesn't exist.