Re: SGML in other applications

[Gary Preckshot <garrell@inreach.com>]

Poet/Joshua Drake wrote:
> 
> <CITE>If it isn't in the H-H or the FAQ, who can hear about it?
> <CITE>
> <CITE>Are we supposed to be clairvoyant?
> <CITE>
> <CITE>Gary
> 
> No, just not an ass. It is not the LDP's responsibility to provide
> documentation of every single resource on the internet for SGML.
> 
> The only responsibility the LDP has is to provide good working
> documentation for the Linux Operating System.
> 
> IF you feel that the information that you are providing is that important,
> get off your soapbox, and sit down at your keyboard for something useful.
> Make a DocBook chapter for the Authoring-HOWTO that covers the tools that
> you are so damn passionate about.

I was thinking of writing a howto on style using docbook. 
There's a huge need to apprise authors of a) what you do to
achieve effects you are used to in other media, b) advice on
making your document searchable. All we have is a few
templates and the H-H. None of them provide a useful
introduction to how to do what you want as an author.
They're all "This is the way I did it" pieces. The H-H has
been much improved. For one thing, it's more in tune with
the general policy (as gleaned from offhand comments in this
forum) of LDP. It still has a geekness about it. It starts
in explaining tools as if you already knew why they were
there. 

There's a vague worship of SGML coupled with a confusion or
lack of requirements for using it, or rather DocBook. You
have no statable requirements for searching, no guidance for
authors on how to make their documents searchable, and no
guidance whatsoever on using DocBook beyond "use article and
the DTD will make all right." There's a lot of things
permitted by the DTD that are useless or ridiculous. We need
a DocLint, similar to the lint used with C.

BTW, I just saw Mark's most recent plans, and they sound
good.

If that's being an ass, I like being an ass.

Gary


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