>I've done some work on using DocBook to make both web documents and >high-quality PDFs. The approach I used was to put LaTeX hints into the >DocBook elements using the 'role' attribute. Role is ignored by most >downstream processing, but you can easily write a DocBook-to-LaTeX >converter that uses these hints to invoke the right high-level LaTeX >constructs. > >For example, the closest thing in DocBook to a LaTeX theorem is a ><formalpara>. If you mark up your document with <formalpara >role='theorem'>, the HTML converter does all it can, but the LaTeX >converter makes it a theorem.
This illustrates _exactly_ my feelings about documentation formats. Basically, I don't give a shit about 90% of the worthless crap that these systems do (yeah, I'm going to be writing a WHOLE LOT of theorems in the Kerberos FAQ); what I want is a simple layout that looks reasonable in text and in HTML, and I want to learn the minimum necessary to accomplish that. I have my HTML reference, and I remember enough of the HTML tags that doing the FAQ in HTML isn't too bad. I don't even have enough time to write the information that goes in the FAQ (you know, the USEFUL stuff); there's NO WAY I'm going to learn DocBook, POD, Latex, XML, TeXinfo, or whatever the latest exciting new documentation format is when HTML is sufficient for my needs. What you describe above is even worse; I'd have to learn both DocBook _and_ LaTeX to make sense of that, and that's simply Not Going To Happen. Now, I told Ted that I didn't have a problem with him converting the FAQ into LaTeX, and that's true ... but at that point I feel it no longer becomes my FAQ, it becomes his. If I ever get around to updating it (which may or may not happen, I have no idea right now), I won't be updating the LaTeX version, I'll be updating my version. If Ted wants to take it over, and his version becomes the one that people update, then hey, that's fine with me; I'll retire my version and point people to it. --Ken _______________________________________________ OpenAFS-info mailing list [email protected] https://lists.openafs.org/mailman/listinfo/openafs-info
