Thank you Tobias for this background information.

I would like to remind us that we have our "own markup language": Text.

It is not possible to write it manually as a plain text but the string
representation is OK.

So we need convenience methods like

Text fromTextile: aString
Text fromReStructuredText: aString
Text fromPier2WikiText: aString

and the inverse

Text>>asTextile
Text>>asRestructuredText
Text>>asPier2WikiText

As these languages are not feature complete there could be some loss
of formatting by doing a round-trip. However I would say let's focus
on what works.

- headings
- bold / italics
- links
- images
- code
- ... maybe more

Helpful in addition

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lightweight_markup_language

It contains a syntax comparison table,

HTH

Hannes

>From WP
<citation>
A lightweight markup language is a markup language with a simple
syntax, designed to be easy for a human to enter with a simple text
editor, and easy to read in its raw form.

Lightweight markup languages are used in applications where people
might be expected to read the document source as well as the rendered
output. For instance, a person downloading a software library might
prefer to read the documentation in a text editor rather than a
browser.

Another application is for entry in web-based publishing, such as
weblogs and wikis, where the input interface is a simple text box. The
server software converts the input to a common document markup
language like HTML or XHTML.
</citation>

On 4/21/10, Tobias Pape <Das.Linux at gmx.de> wrote:
>
> Am 2010-04-21 um 09:53 schrieb Hannes Hirzel:
>
>> Regarding markup
>>
>> I think we should look into the ideas presented by 'markdown'.
>>
>> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Markdown
>> There are a lot of converters in many languages and into many formats.
>>
>
> There are Different such languages.
> • Markdown, 	incarnation in Perl
> 	http://daringfireball.net/projects/markdown/
> – a bunch of extenstions thereof
> 	like http://fletcherpenney.net/multimarkdown/
> • Textile		incarnation in PHP
> 	http://textile.thresholdstate.com/
> Both tend to be heavily used in Rails/Ruby on Rails
>
> • reStructured Text 		incarnation in Python docutils
> 	http://docutils.sourceforge.net/rst.html
> 	used for python docstrings and PEPs
>
> From its history and its application
> (and because i like the syntax)
> I'd vote for the last one
>
> so Long,
> 	-Tobias
>