[Openmcl-devel] ccl manual (was Re: trace on recursive functions)

[Philippe Sismondi]

On 2009-12-11, at 8:54 PM, Steve Núñez wrote:

> Gentlemen,
>
> I must have missed the start of this (well, glossed over it hoping  
> it was a
> brief thread).
>
> I can't help but think that going from DocBooks nicely ordered and
> semantically correct format to something else is anything but a step
> backward.
>
> We use docbook for a lot, and it certainly can be a PITA, but it's  
> better
> than any alternatives when you weigh everything up.
>
> A good XML editor can make this job much, much easier.
>
>    - Steve
>
>

<snip...>

At the risk of wearing this topic out:

The debate arises because there is a hard-to-resolve conflict between  
(a) ease of authoring and (b) structure, uniformity, transforming to  
multiple output formats, etc.

IMHO the best format for creating content that may be transformed to  
other formats is XML, whether docbook or DITA or similar. It is easy  
to transform to html, latex, XSL-FO and then pdf, etc. Knowledge of  
XSLT, plus XSL-FO or latex is essential to make this work.

It is NOT easy for writers to create this content. That is the big  
problem here.

While content authoring can be eased by e.g. paring down docbook  
through its customization layer, and using a good editor (I use  
Arbortext), this takes work.

Unless someone takes on this work (I am interested) I dislike the idea  
of creating impediments to those who actually compose the docs.

Ok, maybe I'll let this one rest for a while. Thanks for your patience.

- P -

I accept that