From: Jonathan Corbet Date: Mon, 3 Jan 2022 22:33:47 +0000 (-0700) Subject: docs: discourage use of list tables X-Git-Url: http://git.maquefel.me/?a=commitdiff_plain;h=db67eb748e7a;p=linux.git docs: discourage use of list tables Our documentation encourages the use of list-table formats, but that advice runs counter to the objective of keeping the plain-text documentation as useful and readable as possible. Turn that advice around the other way so that people don't keep adding these tables. Acked-by: Christoph Hellwig Acked-by: Randy Dunlap Signed-off-by: Jonathan Corbet --- diff --git a/Documentation/doc-guide/sphinx.rst b/Documentation/doc-guide/sphinx.rst index 673cbb769c086..bb36f18ae9ac3 100644 --- a/Documentation/doc-guide/sphinx.rst +++ b/Documentation/doc-guide/sphinx.rst @@ -261,12 +261,11 @@ please feel free to remove it. list tables ----------- -We recommend the use of *list table* formats. The *list table* formats are -double-stage lists. Compared to the ASCII-art they might not be as -comfortable for -readers of the text files. Their advantage is that they are easy to -create or modify and that the diff of a modification is much more meaningful, -because it is limited to the modified content. +The list-table formats can be useful for tables that are not easily laid +out in the usual Sphinx ASCII-art formats. These formats are nearly +impossible for readers of the plain-text documents to understand, though, +and should be avoided in the absence of a strong justification for their +use. The ``flat-table`` is a double-stage list similar to the ``list-table`` with some additional features: