I realize I may not have addressed on the the questions correctly:
Attempting to compile just a page, or a paragraph, on the fly is simply too
slow without careful consideration of that requirement in the construction of
the SGML/XML document. This would also limit the scope of some documents
which otherwise would have fancy indexes, glossaries, etc.
However, I think you have a great idea! What do you think of this:
Documents are stored in DocBook SGML/XML on the web server, probably tarred
and gzipped. A nightly cron job checks the directory listing against a
history; any .gz files that have been updated that day are extracted, and
compiled into the correct locations in HTML, PDF, PS, and plain text format.
A cron job to do this is trivial. If done intelligently, so the compilation
is stored in a temporary location first, and only moved to the final document
location if the compile was successful, you can avoid problems with partial
and/or miscompiled documents. The report from the nightly cron will also
outline deficiencies in individual documents.
Storing stuff in DocBook has the added benefit that DocBook forces at least
some semblance of organization on a document. Documentation coding standards
are also a plus; I can extract some from the Linuxdoc site that are
universally applicable to documentation on a web site.
Is there anybody on-staff at mozilla.org to do a quick hack that supports
this automatic compilation? If not, I'll write one up as a demo on my web
site to show off, and contrib it where appropriate.
--
Matthew P. Barnson Manager, Systems Administration
Excite@Home [EMAIL PROTECTED]
"There is no spoon" -- Neo
