discuss: LinuxDoc vs. DocBook, was Re: part of the review?
Subject:
Re: LinuxDoc vs. DocBook, was Re: part of the review?
From:
"Anthony E. Greene" ####@####.####
Date:
21 Jul 2001 06:07:35 -0000
Message-Id: <Pine.LNX.4.21.0107210148470.13325-100000@cp5340.localdomain>
On Fri, 20 Jul 2001, David Lawyer wrote:
>I've never had the slightest problem with the lack of closing tags.
>They happen in <title>, <date>, and <author> but these are usually
>just one line.
It's a bad habit when you come from a coding or HTML background. Any
markup language that allows this is asking for problems.
>The docbook is harder to understand due to all the
>clutter of the tags. In linuxdoc, I sometimes don't see any tags while
>editing parts of it since it doesn't need paragraph tags. The blank
>lines clearly delineate paragraphs.
If you're a writer by trade or a Python programmer, then whitespace is
important when you look at things. Anyone who writes HTML or uses just
about any other scripting or programming tool places no semantic
importance on whitespace. It's just a code maintenance tool.
People who are likely to write Linux docs have figured out how to do
something. Most likely they are familiar with configuration files and/or
scripting. These are environments where whitespace often has no semantic
significance. They are used to the idea that a blank line may be ignored
by the software that interprets the data.
DocBook can look cluttered if whitespace is not used well. I use
whitespace fairly well, but I still picked up a few good pointers while
looking at the sample doc in the LAG and the DocBook version of the
FDL. They are both well formatted and easy to read. Starting with the
example in the LAG would be a good way for a new author to both see the
tags and start out developing good formatting habits.
Tony
--
Anthony E. Greene ####@####.#### <http://www.pobox.com/~agreene/>
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