Dear listmembers,
I see that I was starting a holy war about ideas how one should
write text. This was not intended. But I want to still give
few key-points about productive writing. (And these are _my_
opinions, I'm not trying to babtize anybody to my beliefs).
- I think that text, style and structure shoud be separated. Good
example of this is SGML, where you have DTD (document type
definition = legal structure of document), SGML-data (the text)
and DSSSL (or whatever you are using for defining the style of
document; HTML, a4paper, etc...)
- When we have separated text and formatting (style), we can
modify the formatting faster, because we don't have to format
every paragraph separately. The tool we are using, can do it
for us. This is because, the style defines the formatting.
- If we have structure separated from contents (text), we
(if needed) can verify that document structure is what is
expected (by customer, programmers, TeX-engine..)
- If the writer is not responsible for the 'look' of the
document, he/she can focus on the subject currently under
work, which makes the writing more efficient
Here are some points why _WE_ are using LyX:
o It's relatively easy to learn (compared to MS Word), easier than
LaTeX
o We can use it with CVS
o basic file-format is ASCII
o allows us to separate contents and style of documents, we hope that
we will use same documents in multiple environments (web, pdf, ...)
o our Tech-Writers are not programmers, they are skilled on
domestic and foreign languages and writing
o LyX recovers quite good from crash, and because the basic
format is ASCII, it can be fixed by advanced user (if
LyX does not recover)
o When using MS Word or such programs, people tend to format, and
re-format, and re-format the document often. This consumes
the valuable time from productive writing.
o LyX is good enough frontend to LaTeX, so that our tech-
writers have no need to learn LaTeX. On simple documents,
and even quite complex documents, tools that LyX offers
are enough.
o Because _I_ think that LyX has potential! It's great piece of
software, and the developers are doing a great work. I'm
bothered only one thing; I don't have the time to contribute
work to the project.
Tommi Rintala
