TechWhirl (TECHWR-L) is a resource for technical writing and technical communications professionals of all experience levels and in all industries to share their experiences and acquire information.
For two decades, technical communicators have turned to TechWhirl to ask and answer questions about the always-changing world of technical communications, such as tools, skills, career paths, methodologies, and emerging industries. The TechWhirl Archives and magazine, created for, by and about technical writers, offer a wealth of knowledge to everyone with an interest in any aspect of technical communications.
Subject:Re: SGML From:Chuck Banks <chuck -at- ASL -dot- DL -dot- NEC -dot- COM> Date:Mon, 28 Jun 1993 16:08:14 CDT
However it may strike you, Chuck, I'm not a coder and I
have no plans to become one. My criticism of the current
spate of parsers et al for SGML is that they are too
primitive to be useful to me. I enjoyed all the coding I
could stand with nroff/troff, DOCUMENT, and CMS Script.
I have no desire to turn back the clock just to achieve
some portability and standardization. The trade off and
time required for the learning curve is too much of an
investment.
For those impatient to switch to SGML documents, more
power to them. I'll wait for more usable tools from the
software developers.
As for programmers, even they have tired of the TTY
interface. It's too damn slow and too damn labor
intensive. CASE is here to stay. GUI and WYSIWYG have
proven themselves in productivity gains.
And who told you WYSIWYG means page-oriented. It just
refers to design and document production software that
shows you a very close approximation of the end result
of your work. There are even CASE tools that provide
WYSIWYG displays for designing interactive windows,
screens, and menus.
As for alternatives, I don't count knowledge of the binary
or extended ASCII or other character set structure of the
files that underly the FrameMaker, or WinWord, or ViewPoint
document display as being of any value to me. I'm not
going to spend the 6 weeks to 6 months to learn about it
when I'll never use that knowledge.
My point is that anything that impedes the creative and
productive process is wasting time. It takes 6 weeks to
become productive using vi and nroff. It takes up to
6 months to become proficient. GUI/WYSIWYG interfaces
allow you to become productive in days and proficient
within 2 months. That's a gain. That's a step forward.
I won't retreat for SGML so long as I don't have to. And
I don't have to.
__ ________ ______
|\\ | || // Chuck Banks
| \\ | ||_______ || Senior Technical Writer
| \\ | || || NEC America, Inc.
| \\| \\______ \\______ E-Mail: chuck -at- asl -dot- dl -dot- nec -dot- com
America, Incorporated CompuServe: 72520,411
