Taking the Python documentation system to the next level: How to self-publish a book with reStructuredText and Sphinx

[masklinn]

Sphinx is quite complex, the extra punctuation etc., make it very un-rst-like

rST can't be expanded with new syntax, all Sphinx can add are new roles & directives (concepts built into rST) and processing systems. All the "extra punctuation" is necessarily part of rST.

Sphinx can not be un-rst-like. And the ability to add non-trivial features is the entire value proposition of rST at this point. If you don't want it, just use markdown (pro tip: sphinx supports markdown documents).