Pandoc is great at bridging the gap between science-oriented data control needs, and management-oriented reporting needs.
I was on a modeling project that used scripts to generate hundreds of input parameters, embed them in models, run the models, and produce reports. The inputs and outputs shifted a lot over the course of the project, as we came to understand the domain and implications of the work better. At every update, the changes had to be transferred to a Microsoft Word document that went to the project sponsors.
Pandoc made this easy -- we just added scripts to write out the model inputs as Markdown tables, then embed those tables in a larger writeup, also written in Markdown. Pandoc turned it all into a Word document. Thus, the same toolchain that did the actual work, also drove the final report. I really don't think we could have had confidence all the tabular data was right, had it not been automated through Pandoc.
I was on a modeling project that used scripts to generate hundreds of input parameters, embed them in models, run the models, and produce reports. The inputs and outputs shifted a lot over the course of the project, as we came to understand the domain and implications of the work better. At every update, the changes had to be transferred to a Microsoft Word document that went to the project sponsors.
Pandoc made this easy -- we just added scripts to write out the model inputs as Markdown tables, then embed those tables in a larger writeup, also written in Markdown. Pandoc turned it all into a Word document. Thus, the same toolchain that did the actual work, also drove the final report. I really don't think we could have had confidence all the tabular data was right, had it not been automated through Pandoc.