.rst or .txt?

[Benoît Bryon]

Hi Docutils and Sphinx developers,

First of all, let's introduce ourselves: we are working on
http://docs.writethedocs.org.
As part of this project, we plan to document and promote conventions
about "how to write documentation". We are starting with Sphinx, because
we are Sphinx and reStructuredText fans...

Now, the real topic of this email: what should we recommend as extension
for reStructuredText files used in Sphinx documentation? ".txt" or ".rst"?

We do believe in Zen of Python's "There should be one-- and preferably
only one --obvious way to do it" but, currently:

* Docutils promotes ".txt" via its FAQ:
http://docutils.sourceforge.net/FAQ.html#what-s-the-standard-filename-extension-for-a-restructuredtext-file

* Sphinx promotes ".rst", as the default choice in ``sphinx-quickstart``.

Were you, Docutils and Sphinx developers, aware of this difference?
If you were, why did you choose ".txt" or ".rst"?

We would like to come up with a standard for all RST documents. **Would
you be willing to promote the use of one extensionin both projects?**

Notice that, whatever the choice, we are planning to promote tools to
apply the conventions we write. One of these tools would help convert a
Sphinx-based documentation into .rst or .txt depending on the convention.

Regards,

Beno�t

[benoit...@novapost.fr]

I asked docutils-develop mailing-list too. There are replies: http://sourceforge.net/mailarchive/forum.php?thread_name=loom.20130216T140447-690%40post.gmane.org&forum_name=docutils-develop
Feel free to reply directly to docutils-develop, so that we have all replies in one thread.

Benoit

Beno�t