On Tue, 29 Feb 2000, Robin Berjon wrote:
[snip]
: That's definitely something that would be nice to have. Iirc there was a
: plan that was discussed on p5p a few months ago that was to have a pod2xml
: translator that would be the one main podlator, and that all other formats
: translated from pod could use that and some XSLT to generate the output.
: There were several threads on the subject, including some on something
: called XPOD though I don't recall what it was exactely. It is likely that
: not all of those suggestions were posted to pod-people so you might want to
: search the p5p archives for messages relating to pod. You'll probably find
: some good ideas lying around there (in middle of some amount of flames).
I'm looking for such discussion, but not finding it -- if anyone has any
pointers for where I'd find it, please let me know.
Poking around, I found the Pod::DocBook module, to convert pod files into
the DocBook DTD. I'd also be interested in hearing if anyone has comments
about this module, if they've used it, and so forth. It does seem to work
fine, but I'm not a great judge since I'm not a huge fan of the DocBook
DTD. But, a module such as this to convert a POD file to the DTD I'll
write which will be as close a representation of POD in SGML as I can come
up with, would definitely be a part of the project I'm envisioning.
Obviously it'd come after writing the DTD and running it past you folks
for comments and opinions.
: Pod's pretty straightforward, as you seem to be experienced with SGML it
: shouldn't take too long to produce something good. The main problem I can
: see coming is to be sure what pod exactely is (does =head3 exist and that
: kind of detail).
*nod* Which means that as I put it together I should probably write up
something explaining what each item in the DTD is and how it corresponds
to POD.
The other question, perhaps obvious, that I figured I should answer is, if
there's already a module to turn POD into SGML in the DocBook DTD, why
write a DTD just for POD, and tools to turn it into that? The quickest
glib answer off the tip of my tongue is "Because I don't really like the
DocBook DTD all that much," and also because I think this would be a very
simple, straightforward DTD, which could among other things be easily
given to anyone who develops documentation in SGML, work with SGML-aware
tools, and generate SGML files which readily map to POD.
: An XML Schema seems like a good idea eventually, though it
: may be worth waiting at least a few weeks as there seems to be new stuff
: coming up soon on that front (such as the mythical subset that would make
: it understandable by creatures of earth).
Okay, I'll hold off on that part of things until later. Plus, it seems
there's plenty of interest in developing XML tools and not so much in SGML
tools so there seems to be less likelihood of duplicating anyone else's
work.
: Glad that someone's willing to work on this :)
Thrilled to, actually. I've spent the past couple of years doing nothing
but developing tools that process SGML data, and building up a good
knowledge base about SGML, and then the other day I started wondering,
"Huh, what's this good for other than what I'm doing right this minute?"
Anyway, I'll probably throw you folks a draft DTD and sample SGML in it
sometime in the next week or two. I figure I'll call it the POD DTD unless
anyone's got a catchy name they want used or something.
Cheers,
Abby
Abby Franquemont "I might have amnesia -- but I'm not stupid!"
J. Random BOFH --Jackie Chan
