Re: Giving up on XML

[Ned Bedinger <doc -at- edwordsmith -dot- com>]

Kevin McLauchlan wrote:
>  
>
> Last Monday, Ned Bedinger was saying:
>   
>> elaborated with empty-but-logical structure. 
>
> maybe you are also forced to insert a paragraph of made-up 
>
> bumph, only to satisfy the tagging system or the style guide 
>
> that says there MUST be a sentence between heading levels...


Yes, that's the kind of thing that can create unpleasant cognitive 
dissonance, when left to the tech writer to decide. Or, for that matter, 
when required of the tech writer.



A quick observation and q: methodology-driven documentation seems to be 
the spiritual home of logical structure. I have noticed that most tech 
writers don't work in an environment where a formal project or 
documentation methodology is de rigeur (e.g., a CMM- or an IEEE-guided 
software development project). Six Sigma or ISO seem to be more common 
development/procedural methodologies, maybe they use formal, 
prescriptive information structure for documentation too?


--Ned

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