Docbook has the benefit of building on any platform and getting all required tools via Maven. Correct me if I am wrong, but Latex requires that the Latex system is manually installed prior to the build (in the right version with the right packages, jadajada…). For portable and repeatable builds, Docbook to me appears to be the better choice.
Cheers, -- Richard On 22.11.2013, at 23:55, Marshall Schor <m...@schor.com> wrote: > The ducc documentation has been written in latex (instead of docbook). > Although > I would encourage people to use similar tooling (to reduce the mental load > when > working on the different parts of the UIMA project), I feel it's OK to use > other > tooling if it helps. > > However, this has raised some issues: > > 1) There are some standard boiler-plate things done for all docbook > documentation that need to be duplicated for the latex approach. One of these > is the legal boilerplate at the beginning of the book; there may be more... > > 2) Because the docbooks are using a common set of styling choices, the > documentation produced by them has a fairly uniform feel. It would be nice if > the styling setup for the output produced by the latex could be adjusted so > the > look/feel of the documentation would match; the users should not be concerned > about which tool was used to produce it. This is a matter of some editing of > the CSS styling files, perhaps. > > 3) The docbook approach also supported cross-book linking, including in > printed > matter in PDF format (where it would insert the page number). It does this by > maintaining a "database" that associates a printed page number with the > hyperlinks. I have no idea if there's a way to do cross book linking from > LaTeX > to docbook. > > We probably also need to expand our "one-time-setup" page to include > instructions on how to get and install latex, saying that it's needed for > building the ducc documentation. > > -Marshall
