Re: was something else - now SGML and XML

[David Mason <dcm@redhat.com>]

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< 7453-Wed23Feb2000110215-0500-ndw@nwalsh.com >
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From: "David C. Mason" <dcm@redhat.com>
Date: 23 Feb 2000 11:26:42 -0500
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Norman Walsh <ndw@nwalsh.com> writes:

> There are some authoring changes (system identifiers, empty tag
> syntax, etc.), but the only thing the tools have to do
> differently is pass an appropriate SGML declaration to, e.g.,
> Jade.

Like I said - this is true. I know that. But something like empty tag
syntax is something that will affect the writer when then finally
change the heading on their doc and wonder why the hell it gets
errors. The problem is not that I can't handle the changes coming or
work around the available tools to work with XML - I can - but the new
contributor to the doc project I work on who happens to have come from
the Word Processor world and just can't quite grasp this stuff needs a
little more help than what jade and XT provide. And to try to merge
someone who is willing to help through changes like you mention above
sometimes means losing that volunteer. I spend most of my time
figuring out how to keep them around and not scare them off. DocBook
itself sometimes scares them off without even trying it out. 

> I'm doing everything I do with XML using Jade and XT. Well,
> except for editing which I sometimes use, um, Arbortext products
> for, no surprise, and they aren't available for Linux (more's
> the pity) but they sure are available for Unix.

When is that port coming anyway? ;)

> I'll save some of my wilder theories for a chat over a beer some
> night, but the simpler answer is that the new tools are coming
> along because XML is easier to process than SGML. XML is mostly
> marketing.
> 
> New tools *don't have to be written*. All your existing SGML
> tools work just fine.


So the beer I'm up for - but are you telling me that Jade will parse
XML against XSL? It doesn't do that and, it won't do that anytime soon
as far as I can tell. XT is fine if you want to write code around it
to do some parsing testing but its not finished, and like I said - its
a new tool being written.

Its very similar situation to the introduction of XSL - which, on the
surface, appears to be a rewrite of dsssl with < >'s so that people
will understand it better (or something). Its introduction is not only
stealing away from the work done on dsssl tools, but as you say
yourself "They would also work just fine with the straight DocBook
DTD, but I'm not aware of any XSL processors that parse SGML
documents." - well DocBook XML *is* SGML isnt it? :)


Dave