David Neeley wrote:
I am trying to get far enough up the learning curve with LyX that I
can feel good about creating style files. Then, I intend to do a style
file for DITA--because I believe that LyX is, potentially, a far
better tech writing solution than anything else out there at the
moment. I also believe that DITA has advantages over most other
XML-based solutions for the purpose...and it should be far easier for
folks to learn and use consistently than DocBook, for instance.
Directions for tomorrow's techwriting
From: David Neeley
Date: Mon, Apr 22 2002 8:24 am
Groups: bit.listserv.techwr-l
Greetings!
"I would appreciate your thoughts about the direction
of technical writing departments and practices in the
near future. Specifically, I invite your comments
about my growing conviction that we will see a growing
methodology shift driven by increased understanding of
the benefits of creating documentation that is easy to
re-use and maintain. It appears clear that this will
in most cases be through employment of XML and
repository tools based upon this technology."
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SH: The Docbook topic comes up occasionally. Chris Karakas
has done quite a bit of work producing with LyX, SGML, and
Latex. http://www.karakas-online.de/mySGML/ There is quite
a bit involved to get all the packages working together IMO.
My main problem with Kubuntu at the moment is that the repository is
still behind the times with 1.3.7--I did the ./configure/make/make
install routine for 1.4.1.
David
I use Redhat because it installs so easily. I'm not able to argue
the merits of Fedora vs. other Linux versions and also Rex Dieter
monitors this list and he produces Fedora rpms very quickly, so
I never have a problem with updates and LyX, it's very convenient.
For those reading who are not acquainted with DITA:
http://www.newsforge.com/article.pl?sid=06/05/05/1744245
DITA
"Over the last couple of years, Oasis Darwin Information Typing
Architecture (DITA) has been attracting a lot of attention among
technical writers -- so much so that it's starting to eat into
the market share of DocBook. Rather than being based on the
traditional book-chapter-section format, DITA is meant for creating
individual topics that you can combine and reuse in different types
of documentation and in different delivery formats. You can use
DITA to create just about any kind of documentation, but it's best
suited for Web content, online help, computer-based training,
knowledge bases, and FAQs.
Because DITA is based on XML, you can use any text or XML editor
to author DITA documents. Several editing tools both support DITA
and run on Linux. My text editor of choice is Emacs in conjunction
with psgmlx, which is what I use with DocBook. ...
Right now, the only way to convert a DITA document to a more usable
format on Linux is with the DITA Open Toolkit for Linux. The Open
Toolkit is easy to use and can transform DITA content to HTML,
XHTML, PDF, Eclipse Help, or RTF."
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http://www-128.ibm.com/developerworks/xml/library/x-emacs/
I think (X)Emacs has been developed longer in this area.
I think Lyx 1.5 and 1.6 are slated to improve performance
for XML and Unicode. I'm not sure how easy it will be to
realize your goal, though I think it is a good idea. I've
seen the developers with expert opinions, Jose Matos and
Georg Baum express some interest in this topic. I think
information about other approaches might be helpful; so
much seems revolve around converting one format to another
these days in various database paradigms (thinking of AI).
Viva la Semantic Web!
Stephen
