discuss: Docbook, Xml, Jade etc.
Subject:
Re: Docbook, Xml, Jade etc.
From:
"Chris Karakas" ####@####.####
Date:
29 Jul 2003 16:15:28 -0000
Message-Id: <20030729.buT.21677900@www.karakas-online.de>
(I wrote this yesterday, but bounced because I used the wrong e-mail address.
I repost it, this time it should be O.K.).
Simon Anderson wrote:
>
> Why do I need to install all of the various elements of this undocumented
> LDP cruft then learn how to use it in order to get a document published?
>
Because it is the best way to create HTML, PDF, PS, TXT, RTF, TEX
versions of your document from one source (SGML/XML).
But this is only half the truth. The other half is: Because it separates
presentation of content from the content itself.
In 20 years from now, when nobody will be using HTML, when Adobe will be
bankrupt (and with it the PDF and PS formats will be defunct), when
"Word 2023" will tell you "Sorry, this RTF format is too old, I can't
read it" - then I will ask you to print only those paragraphs of your
document that contain a citation of the 10th bibliographic entry of your
bibliography. With the "semantic Web" being a reality by then, this will
be trivial to do with the SGML/XML version of your document. But, since
"everyone reads HOWTO's in html anyway", you will have written it in
HTML, a presentational markup of the last century, a markup unable to
tell if a "10" refers to the font size or the 10th item of a list, and
you will be unable to answer my (and "everyone's" by that time) simple
query which I will have entered in a search engine.
This may not be important to you, as it is currently not important to
the authors of many millions HTML pages - but it is important to TLDP
which, as an institution, is concerned about longevity of the documents
it invests so much effort to publish.
By the way, by far not "everyone" reads HOWTOs (or whatever for that
matter) in HTML. I am one of the few that read *all* documents online,
on the screen, and (consequently) I "read HOWTOS in HTML". Me and a few
others (who I still have to meet) are not everyone: the vast majority of
the people I know prefer to *print* the document and then really read it
(as opposed to just skim it). "Reading printed (possibly HTML) output"
is very different from "reading HTML on the screen". You suggest they
print HTML? May be you are satisfied with the printing quality of HTML
but then you probably never saw a printed document that was typeset with
TeX, or even a printed PDF manual - otherwise you wouldn't suggest this.
> Everyone reads HOWTO's in html anyway, why jump through all of the
> unnecessary hoops? Having to go through all of this rubbish to translate a
> perfectly good document from HTML into some unnecessary alternative format
> for the one in a billion people that doesn't have a browser is a complete
> waste of time.
>
Read
http://opensource.bureau-cornavin.com/crash-course/your-world-view.html
http://www.itcentrs.lv/linux/docs/LDP-Author-Guide/whysgml.html
http://www.docbook.org/tdg/en/html/ch01.html#ch01-compare
to see why. Good references are also
http://www.docbook.org/tdg/en/html/docbook.html
http://docbook.org/wiki/moin.cgi/
They should point you to enough resources to start going.
> I've looked through the necessary packages, none of which
> contains _any_ documentation on install or usage. docbook-dssl handily
> mentions an install.html file but doesn't bother to provide it. Some of
> the packages uncompress into the current directory and try to overwrite
> files from other packages. Which versions should I use? This thing is an
> complete mess!
There was no README or INSTALL file? Hard to believe. Anyway, if you
find it difficult to install them manually, choose a distribution and
let it install them for you.
That's the price of freedom - you have to learn your choices.
--
--
Regards
Chris Karakas
http://www.karakas-online.de
