Re: Giving up on XML

["Mike Starr" <mikestarr-techwr-l -at- writestarr -dot- com>]

Well, of course you're right... if I could think of a reason I'd need a 
nanny to watch over my shoulder and make sure I didn't violate standards I'd 
have to choose a different tool. I do think that, in spite of not having 
been created by an "official" Structured Document Authoring Tool®, it could 
still actually be a structured document. If it walks like a duck...

However, I suspect if the standard you're referring to had incorporated a 
second head3-level style for those sorts of situations, your writers 
wouldn't have felt compelled to use a head4 in its place. There should 
always be a mechanism in place for situations that weren't anticipated when 
the style guide/DTD was created. Even the best style guide needs to be 
overridden once in a while. That's the value of an experienced writer.

But just out of curiosity, if one skips a level, is that inherently evil? 
Isn't the resulting document still intact with respect to the heirarchy? And 
even if it isn't is that in itself a fatal flaw if I can look at the 
document structure and still make sense of it? In my case, there's nobody to 
impose structure on my documents other than my own built-in standards that I 
adhere to.

Mike
--
Mike Starr                            WriteStarr Information Services
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----- Original Message -----
From: "Janice Gelb" <janice -dot- gelb -at- sun -dot- com>
To: "techwhirlers" <techwr-l -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com>
Sent: Sunday, March 18, 2007 10:45 PM
Subject: Re: Giving up on XML

> Mike Starr wrote:
>> Ah and I create lovely structured documents using Word...
>>
>> Apply heading styles as appropriate then use Word's outline functionality 
>> to
>> reveal the structure. Drag-and-drop and/or promote/demote to revise the
>> structure.
>>
>
> Contrary to appearances, these are not actually
> structured documents. For example, nothing prevents
> you from putting a Head4 after a Head2 (something
> our writers used to do in FrameMaker when they
> didn't want the bigger font of a Head3 after
> certain Head2  headings). The numbers refer to the
> styling you've assigned to the heads rather than
> to an actual structure, even though you are using
> appearance to indicate a structure.
>
> SGML, at least, enforces a DTD rule set that
> prevents one from tinkering with structure
> just for output effects, or with using *ahem*
> personalized structures that do not match a
> structure that has been decided on by the
> entire organization as the standard.
>
> -- Janice 

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