Has anybody worried about the lifespan or broad acceptance of rst in the wider world? I can only find references to it as a Python documentation tool. How likely is it that rst tools will be available and supported in a few decades, or that there will be stable and detailed definitions of rst by industry standards bodies for implementations to conform to?
Yes I worry about this. RST is just a resurrection of the early K&K Un*x technical documentation work of the 1970s -- which was tried and rejected by a previous generation of document writers, leading to the currently accepted approach of balanced context-independent tags which are found in HTML and XML. I would love to see an XML based approach, or an EPUB3 based approach -- which are more-directly aimed at actually coding books -- BUT, the tools aren't out there widely available, AND there aren't the people out there to code the books into a PG-specific XML version, nor in an EPUB3 version. In short, what would you need to get ANY file format to work: WIDELY available authoring tools everywhere. WIDELY available rendering tools everywhere. WIDE near universal acceptance among eBook Readers. WIDE near universal acceptance of that file format by PG would-be book authors. If you don't have this then what happens? Then would-be PG authors simply "route around damage" by choosing to publish to some other distribution site other than PG. Then PG can pick up the book from that site, where it is found written in say, HTML, and now PG once-again has an HTML book which is incompatible with PG's internally chosen boutique file format, and then PG is right back to the same situation as they are today. Again, IN PRACTICE, I would recommend HTML plus a PG suggested style guide, such that those submitters who actually care can minimize problems by submitting to the suggested PG HTML coding style. Do I WISH there was a better solution? Yes. Do I find that what others are suggesting as "the cure" to be an improvement? No.