[ANNOUNCE] xorg-sgml-doctools-1.2

[Gene Heskett]

On Sunday 04 March 2007, Daniel Stone wrote:
>On Sun, Mar 04, 2007 at 05:15:41PM -0500, Gene Heskett wrote:
>> On Sunday 04 March 2007, Daniel Stone wrote:
>> >Okay, and you're missing the point.  DocBook is _not_ the final
>> > format. It is used to generate HTML, PDF, roff, etc.  You write
>> > documentation in DocBook, and users type man whatever.
>>
>> That has never worked here.  Example:
>> [root at coyote ~]# man docbook-utils
>> No manual entry for docbook-utils
>>
>> So where IS the bridge that will teach the user how to use it?
>
>I don't think I'm getting through, somehow.
>
>Users never deal with DocBook.  Full stop.

Oh?  Maybe you should tell the packagers that, lots of stuff ships with 
only a docbook subdir in the tree.

>When I type './foo', it doesn't matter to me if it was originally C,
>C++, or whatever.  It's compiled to bytecode, right?
>
>Similarly with DocBook.  You write documentation in DocBook, and then
>convert it to something else, for the users.  People reading the HTML or
>PDFs online don't care that it was once DocBook.  People reading the
>manpages on their systems with 'man XInput' or whatever the document is
>called[0], don't know or care that it was once DocBook.
>
>Sort of how you're probably unaware that most of the generated
>PostScript documents floating around were generated that way from
>_FrameMaker_.  Not just FrameMaker, but a version so old, that we no
>longer have tools that can read it.  After getting in touch with the
>vendor, we finally have a solution whereby one person can run an old
>version of FrameMaker and save it in a version the new one can read, and
>then get it into a sensible format ...
>
>If you don't understand this time, then I really am sorry, but I've done
>all I can.
>
>> >So, I don't see any problem at all.
>>
>> Obviously you are privy to the secret incantations to make it work.  I
>> would like to join that club but my attempts to carve a working key
>> have so far, been both very frustrating, and an utter failure.
>
>I can see why, because you're attempting to solve the wrong problem.
>
>As an aside, I tend to lose interest whenever I see 'M$'.  Particularly
>if the analogy makes no sense.
>
Mmmm, was not Framemaker an M$ product?  Popular back about the same time 
FrontPage managed to break every browser on the planet that expected w3c 
validated input?  Please correct me if that's not a correct assumption on 
my part.

>Cheers,
>Daniel
>
>[0]: I can't remember the names of all the documents in xorg-docs, so
>     don't try this one, you'll only end up confused.



-- 
Cheers, Gene
"There are four boxes to be used in defense of liberty:
 soap, ballot, jury, and ammo. Please use in that order."
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Copyright 2007 by Maurice Eugene Heskett, all rights reserved.