Call for a volunteer to examine output of AsciiDoc-generated P4 language spec

[Andy Fingerhut]

I would like to ask for one volunteer to compare:

(a) the PDF generated by the current markup language (Madoko) used for the P4 language specification,

against

(b) the PDF generated by a proposed new markup language (AsciiDoc) for the same specification

See this comment on a public p4-spec GIthub issue for links to where you can find those things: https://github.com/p4lang/p4-spec/issues/1115#issuecomment-2115323019

The goal would be to look for differences not in the wording of the text (which should be identical), but in the look-and-feel of the produced document, and come back with an opinion on whether switching over from Madoko to AsciiDoc is ready for prime time.

Examples of aspects that you might want to compare:

+ the font

+ how tables look

+ how figures look

+ the table of contents

+ P4 code snippets, which use different colorization, but this can be tweaked to one of several existing choices, or we could probably also make up a new colorization scheme that is closer to the original if that is considered important.

Ideally the reviewer could report their findings at a future P4 language design work group meeting, and add a comment on the issue linked above, and give a recommendation for the changes as they are not, or suggest changes they would prefer to see before we switch over.

Reminder: The reason for this is that the software to generate PDF and HTML from Madoko syntax markup files is no longer maintained as of 2019, whereas AsciiDoc is under active use and maintenance by many people.

Thanks,

Andy Fingerhut