Re: [Docutils-develop] Forcing line breaks

[Adam C. <ad...@ch...>]

On Sat, 07 Sep 2002 13:12:32 -0400 David Goodger
<go...@us...> wrote:

> > Definition lists do fit *conceptually*, but unfortunately not with
> > regard to presentation. When you specify contact information or
> > similar data, you almost always do it like this::
> > 
> >   Name:    Adam Chodorowski
> >   Address: The Street 42
> >            11111 The City
> >   Country: Sweden
> >   Phone:   +46-8-1111111
> 
> Actually, I would write it like this::
> 
>     Adam Chodorowski
>     The Street 42
>     11111 The City
>     Sweden
>     phone +46-8-1111111
> 
> Most of the labels are redundant; people know how to read addresses
> from context.

That's true, as long as you only have name and address I guess. But when you
start tacking on things like phone, mobile, email, ..., you have to prefix
them with something (atleast phone and mobile, I guess email would be clear
from the context :)).



> > Having definition lists is *not* intuitive for the reader
> ...
> > nobody excepts contact information to be presented that way.
> 
> I wouldn't expect contact information to be presented the "field list"
> way either.  Are conventions so different in Sweden?  Do you really
> need to label everything?  (But this is avoiding the real issue.)

Well, no, I guess we don't label addresses normally since everyone knows what
is what from the context. But when I also add phone number and such, I usually
put labels on everything (to be consistent).
 
[...]
> I'm beginning to like this change.  If we drop the notion of "field
> arguments", field lists become simpler and fully generic.  Then I'd
> drop my objection to their use as a generic document construct.  Any
> objections to this change?

No. :)

---
Adam Chodorowski <ad...@ch...>

Of course everyone knows that vim is the best text editor in the world.  
Anyone who tells you differently is either wrong, lying, or criminally 
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criminally insane).
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