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Re: Oracle Help or Java Help -- how to choose?

Subject: Re: Oracle Help or Java Help -- how to choose?
From: Lou Quillio <public -at- quillio -dot- com>
To: "TECHWR-L" <techwr-l -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com>
Date: Tue, 07 Jun 2005 20:19:13 -0400


Bill Swallow wrote:

"pure Java"

Unique requirement. Suppose you're stuck.

I don't understand why it's costly. I have help that's continually
updated with the product and is 100% context-sensitive. It's built
automatically every night. All I have to do is ensure the content's
good.

Sounds like a fine, evolved system, well-suited to your product(s). Good show.

Here's what I know -- and this assumes a diversity of scenarios and needs: there's a lot of wheel-spinning in this business, and a lot of it derives from not letting drafts be drafts.

Everybody wants to see a daily snapshot of "what it will look like", instead of focusing on content -- even when delivery is far in the future. I've worked in a lot of TW scenarios where most of the expected effort was constant synchronization of a big pack of MS Word files to a smaller pack of Frame files. And I've done it. But it's sure not the best use of the big bucks they're paying me.

As long as the 'working' file format is structured and there's a master plan for efficiently porting it to the 'production' file format, much waste is spared. XHTML (or another XML dialect, like DocBook) is well suited to this. The unstyled data and its structure live together. There's a presentation layer (CSS, XSLT) that can *approximate* the finished look -- and evolve with the product -- that scratches the "pretty picture" need but keeps its mitts off the data and structure. Last, the document production tool can reach into and parse the embedded structure, and do dat shiny voodoo dat it do on an automated basis.

YMMV. I'll rig-up a demo one of these days. But Neeley and Castro have me all lathered-up on Laszlo, and right now I just gotta monkey with it some more. Impure Java. Good stuff.

http://www.laszlosystems.com/lps/laszlo-in-ten-minutes/

LQ

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References:
Oracle Help or Java Help -- how to choose?: From: Aricioglu, Emmy
Oracle Help or Java Help -- how to choose?: From: Bill Swallow
Re: Oracle Help or Java Help -- how to choose?: From: Lou Quillio
Re: Oracle Help or Java Help -- how to choose?: From: Bill Swallow
Re: Oracle Help or Java Help -- how to choose?: From: Lou Quillio
Re: Oracle Help or Java Help -- how to choose?: From: Bill Swallow
Re: Oracle Help or Java Help -- how to choose?: From: Lou Quillio
Re: Oracle Help or Java Help -- how to choose?: From: Bill Swallow

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