clean up links

[steveklabnik]

There's some links that look like this: https://github.com/rust-lang/book/pull/121/files/71c5092981991dfc7c069c17755ccc0503d364d8#diff-5a38e4b927fd6bd31ea3659840d1c1f2R212

Due to No Starch shenanigans. We should convert them to real links after no starch's final draft exists.

[carols10cents]

Better link, that commit is gone apparently: https://github.com/rust-lang/book/blob/first-third-try/src/ch03-02-data-types.md#the-character-type

I also just created #169 since this issue is mostly about converting between whatever we have to do for print back to web, but I realized we didn't have a separate issue about how nostarch would like us to handle links in print, exactly :-/

[carols10cents]

Ok, so we want the md files that mdbook uses to have:

issue or send a pull request [on GitHub].

[on GitHub]: https://github.com/rust-lang/book

and the nostarch files to have:

issue or send a pull request on GitHub at *https://github.com/rust-lang/book*.

Questions:

• Is at *url* a thing we could standardize on? Would it always work in the prose in places that we link now?
• It would be nice if we could keep the HTML being nice links between now and when we're done with the print version for nostarch, right?
• If that is correct, should we implement this in a script by doing:
  • Before sending to nostarch, run a script on the md files that turns [whatever](url) into whatever at *url* (assumes we can standardize on at *url* for the prose text)
  • Before running mdbook, run a script on the md files that turns whatever at *url* into [whatever](url) (could be extended to have comments to indicate what should be the link text and what text should be removed in case we can't standardize on at *url*)

Orrrr something else?

[steveklabnik]

Is at url a thing we could standardize on?

We'd have to consider

1. regular bold text
2. full URLs
3. relative URLs

1 and 3 are hard to differentiate.

It would be nice if we could keep the HTML being nice links between now and when we're done with the print version for nostarch, right?

Yes

If that is correct, should we implement this in a script by doing:

That'd be sweeeeet

[carols10cents]

That'd be sweeeeet

Which script tho, do you have a preference? I think we could do either:

• Before sending to nostarch, run a script on the md files that turns [whatever](url) into whatever at *url* (assumes we can standardize on at *url* for the prose text)
• Before running mdbook, run a script on the md files that turns whatever at *url* into [whatever](url) (could be extended to have comments to indicate what should be the link text and what text should be removed in case we can't standardize on at *url*)

I think the first one would be easier since this would be generating the at *url* text, and it wouldn't have the ambiguity of distinguishing from bold, as you pointed out. It would have to make sure the URL was absolute though, that's a good point.

If you agree that the first script option would be a good way to go, I'll make a separate issue for that :)

[steveklabnik]

I feel like 1 is easier; we should do what we want with our repo, and then modify things at the point of sending to No Starch. Or at least, that's the direction I lean.

[carols10cents]

Ok, I think this can be closed now since we figured out ways to have our links and print them too :)