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I might be a bit behind on this thread (time zones and digest (lurk) mode,
but please bear with me, I have a question.
Scott (quils) wrote:
> About 15 to 20 years ago, format was separated from writing. It
> wasn't very efficient.
As Norbert and Jeroen point out, this is debatable at best. I would
say it's fundamentally wrong --- writing in plain text is the most efficient
way to _write_. Typesetting (in the broad sense, including on-line
layout) is an entirely seperate skillset). I've posted a link to this
article before, and I'm sure I'll post it again: http://ricardo.ecn.wfu.edu/~cottrell/wp.html
Scott also says:
>XML will not necessarily add to the ease of use, since the technology
>for rendering XML is not yet developed. If you must use XML look into
>Adobe FrameMaker 7
A lot of very serious and sensible people seem to be getting along very
nicely transforming some xml DTD or other into TeX and typesetting from
there, and as Jeroen says it's all available for free...
My question, for those that are interested in such things, is this; if you
have already invested in using a semantically rich and readable mark-up
language
such as LaTeX (with your own macros for semantic elements), which gives you
the best available typesetting for free, is it worth investing the extra
effort
in moving to DocBook or some other xml DTD, then introducing the extra
step (conversion from DocBook to TeX) for rendering to paper or PDF?
Is there a tangible gain, and is it worth the extra work? Or should the
increasing
interest in XML be seen as evidence that other logical/semantic markup
systems such as LaTeX were the right approach all along?
Does anyone with experience of this have any comments? (I guess
in light of John Gilger's comment this is aimed at TECHNICAL
writers :-)
Christopher Gooch, Technical Author
LightWork Design, Sheffield, UK.
chris -dot- gooch -at- lightworkdesign -dot- com
www.lightworkdesign.com
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