On Thu, 2002-10-24 at 12:40, Mike Warren wrote:
> > I might be able to get over my annoyance with XML if I look deeper
> > into Emacs -- I'm sure there's something in there to make it more
> > pleasant (maybe abbrev...)
> 
> Yes, there's sgml-mode. Supplied with a DTD, it gives you
> popups/prompts for all legal tags/attributes in your current context,
> does indenting correctly and paragraph-filling doesn't screw with tags
> (just text). All-in-all, very nice.
> 
> (So, yes, it works with HTML or XML, being an SGML parser...)
> 
> Try opening a new .html file, which should put you in html-mode right
> away after prompting for a title for your document...

Ah, I know it well... but I can't say I like it that much.  When writing
documentation I use probably about 5 types of markup, and then the
occasional header.  I don't need a powerful, general tool -- I need a
tool that does that small bit of markup easily.  For something like
Webware, I expect markup for: identifiers and short code fragments, long
code fragments, internal and external links/references, anchors (to
reference to), paragraphs, the occasional emphasis, and headers.  All
other markup is largely superfluous.  It's not the syntax that causes me
a problem, but the process of inputing that verbose syntax.

Really, that's why I like reST -- it does that small bit of markup very
easily, and without being verbose.  I might be able to achieve the same
thing with abbrev mode or some macro -- but the point is to make input
easy, not to make the formality of SGML/XML easy (since I don't find the
formality hard).  I like reST because it feels like Python.  I could
probably make a translator from a text-like markup to a particular XML
schema well enough... and I might do that if we decide on a particular
schema.  I think that would be better than trying to deal with all the
needless tags.

  Ian



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