[wiki-standards] Hello - request comments on Creole

[Mike Haseler]

Hi,

I've spent the last few weeks trying to come to grips with what is 
optimistically called the creole "specification".

I say "optimistically", because because even the very simplest things 
like whether there can be a space between bold and the text isn't 
defined. (ie **bold** vs. ** bold ** )

I believe the problem stems from a total opposition of goals between the 
project and my own requirements.

Creole seems to be a "nice-to-have" list of "similarities" which you 
"might like to implement" if you feel like it.

In contrast, I just want a defined markup specification so that I can be 
sure I am compatible without all the hassle of trying to work out what 
this or that should do.

I've reached the stage, where I'm basically dumping the creole idea as a 
waste of time because I keep posting comments on the wiki and get no reply.

======
Aim,

my aim is to create a basic form of format that can be used across a 
wide range of applications from wikis, to blogs, to message boards, to 
private messages, to adverts for houses, to address lists for scouts.

The applications have two things in commons:

1. They share the same username/password/authentication system
2. They share the same text interface.

I'm not in principle against wizi-wig textual interfaces, except that I 
regularly post on bulletin boards with such wizi-wig interfaces, and I 
never use them, so they are a toupee to markup not hair transplant.

=====
Reason for writing,

I reached that stage in the pistophonous curve where I wished I'd never 
started this project because I can't write one bit of code without 
finding that I've got a bug in another bit, and to be honest the creole 
spec is light relief compared to debugging some of the stuff I've written.

And, I'm now so deep in the shit, and have so much newly written code 
that I realise it's going to take months and months to test this blasted 
thing .... and I may as well get into practice with blogging because 
with no one else involved in the project, I'm going to be talking to 
myself for months if not years at the current rate of progress.

Mike

PS. 14,000 characters on my test case, and I'm still regularly finding 
new problems and adding them to my test cases. (can a table have a 
numbered list, why doesn't Firefox implement ­)