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From: "Edward C. Bailey" <ed@redhat.com>
To: docbook-tools-discuss@sourceware.cygnus.com
Subject: Re: docbook-tools-discuss: Re: I'm trying to set up docbook-tools...
Date: Wed, 27 Dec 2000 06:36:00 -0000	[thread overview]
Message-ID: <lf8zvdho5m.fsf@pigdog.meridian.redhat.com> (raw)
In-Reply-To: <87puoqniw7.fsf@nwalsh.com>

>>>>> "Norm" == Norman Walsh <ndw@nwalsh.com> writes:
...
Norm> A little more discussion about how to convert from procedural markup
Norm> to structural markup is probably in order, but tools to do this are
Norm> very, very hard to write. This is the problem I call "dragging markup
Norm> up hill".  Look at the troff source for an (old) O'Reilly book (I
Norm> have :-), and you'll find that the same troff markup for "italic" is
Norm> used for all the things that are italic in print. (Quelle
Norm> surprise). But if you want to mark those things up semantically, you
Norm> have to distinguish between at least three or four different kinds of
Norm> italic things which is nearly impossible to do accurately.

We had the same problem going from LaTeX to DocBook; for every
\texttt{foo}, our script converted it to <TT?>foo</TT?>.  We then used
Emacs to do multiple query-replaces (ie, one to go from "TT?" to
"filename", one for "TT?" to "command", etc).  Once you got going, it was
possible to crank through a surprising volume of markup in a reasonable
amount of time.  Pretty mind-numbing, though... :-)  And I wouldn't
recommend taking this approach if you're a large company converting tons of
legacy content.

To really automate this kind of thing requires something on the order of a
HAL 9000 -- by looking at the few words surrounding the content in
question, a human being can make a pretty accurate assessment in a second
or so, but having a machine do the same thing is "Sir
Not-Appearing-in-This-Film", at least for the time being... :-)

                            Ed
-- 
Ed Bailey        Red Hat, Inc.          http://www.redhat.com/

  reply	other threads:[~2000-12-27  6:36 UTC|newest]

Thread overview: 94+ messages / expand[flat|nested]  mbox.gz  Atom feed  top
2000-12-27  6:36 Eric S. Raymond
2000-07-04  8:02 ` Eric S. Raymond
2000-12-27  6:36 ` Eric Lee Green
2000-07-04 10:25   ` Eric Lee Green
2000-12-27  6:36   ` Norman Walsh
2000-07-06  9:21     ` Norman Walsh
     [not found]     ` <ndw@nwalsh.com>
2000-12-27  6:36       ` richard offer
2000-12-27  6:36         ` Norman Walsh
2000-07-07  7:49           ` Norman Walsh
2000-12-27  6:36         ` Eric Bischoff
2000-12-27  6:36           ` Norman Walsh
2000-07-28 10:44             ` Norman Walsh
2000-12-27  6:36     ` Chuck Dale
2000-12-27  6:36     ` docbook-tools-discuss: " Bill Campbell
2000-12-27  6:36       ` Norman Walsh
2000-12-27  6:36         ` Edward C. Bailey [this message]
2000-12-27  6:36         ` Eric S. Raymond
2000-12-27  6:36         ` Bill Campbell
2000-12-27  6:36     ` Eric S. Raymond
2000-12-27  6:36       ` Mark Galassi
2000-07-06 10:25         ` Mark Galassi
2000-12-27  6:36         ` Eric S. Raymond
2000-07-06 10:37           ` Eric S. Raymond
2000-12-27  6:36           ` Kendall Clark
2000-07-06 10:48             ` Kendall Clark
2000-12-27  6:36             ` Mark Galassi
2000-07-06 10:53               ` Mark Galassi
2000-12-27  6:36               ` Eric Lee Green
2000-07-06 13:38                 ` Eric Lee Green
2000-12-27  6:36                 ` Norman Walsh
2000-12-27  6:36       ` David C. Mason
2000-12-27  6:36         ` Eric S. Raymond
2000-07-06 11:59           ` Eric S. Raymond
2000-12-27  6:36           ` David C. Mason
2000-07-06 13:55             ` David C. Mason
2000-12-27  6:36             ` Eric S. Raymond
2000-07-06 14:52               ` Eric S. Raymond
2000-12-27  6:36               ` David C. Mason
2000-07-06 15:23                 ` David C. Mason
2000-12-27  6:36                 ` Eric Lee Green
2000-07-06 15:57                   ` Eric Lee Green
2000-12-27  6:36                 ` Eric S. Raymond
2000-07-06 15:52                   ` Eric S. Raymond
2000-12-27  6:36               ` Edward C. Bailey
2000-07-06 16:05                 ` Edward C. Bailey
2000-12-27  6:36                 ` Eric S. Raymond
2000-07-06 16:46                   ` Eric S. Raymond
2000-12-27  6:36                   ` Norman Walsh
2000-07-07  7:49                     ` Norman Walsh
2000-12-27  6:36                     ` Eric S. Raymond
2000-12-27  6:36                       ` Norman Walsh
2000-07-07 14:42                         ` Norman Walsh
2000-12-27  6:36                     ` Mark Galassi
2000-12-27  6:36                     ` Derek Simkowiak
2000-12-27  6:36             ` Eric Lee Green
2000-07-06 14:32               ` Eric Lee Green
2000-12-27  6:36         ` Eric Lee Green
2000-07-06 14:22           ` Eric Lee Green
2000-12-27  6:36       ` Crash-course to DocBook Eric Bischoff
2000-12-27  6:36         ` Peter Toft
2000-12-27  6:36         ` Mark Johnson
2000-12-27  6:36           ` Eric Bischoff
2000-12-27  6:36       ` I'm trying to set up docbook-tools Norman Walsh
2000-07-07  7:49         ` Norman Walsh
2000-12-27  6:36   ` David C. Mason
2000-07-05  7:41     ` David C. Mason
2000-12-27  6:36   ` Mark Galassi
2000-07-04 11:21     ` Mark Galassi
2000-12-27  6:36     ` Norman Walsh
2000-07-07  7:49       ` Norman Walsh
2000-12-27  6:36   ` madhu
2000-07-04 22:01     ` madhu
2000-12-27  6:36     ` Sam Roberts
2000-07-05  7:32       ` Sam Roberts
2000-12-27  6:36     ` Eric Lee Green
2000-12-27  6:36       ` Sam Roberts
2000-07-05  7:40         ` Sam Roberts
2000-12-27  6:36         ` Ismael Olea
2000-07-05  9:57           ` Ismael Olea
2000-12-27  6:36           ` Mark Galassi
2000-07-05  9:59             ` Mark Galassi
2000-12-27  6:36       ` Norman Walsh
2000-12-27  6:36 ` Mark Galassi
2000-07-04  8:05   ` Mark Galassi
2000-12-27  6:36   ` Eric S. Raymond
2000-07-04  8:22     ` Eric S. Raymond
2000-12-27  6:36     ` Chuck Mead
2000-07-04  8:45       ` Chuck Mead
2000-12-27  6:36     ` Mark Galassi
2000-07-04  8:27       ` Mark Galassi
2000-12-27  6:36       ` Eric S. Raymond
2000-07-04  8:45         ` Eric S. Raymond
2000-12-27  6:36     ` Norman Walsh
2000-07-07  7:49       ` Norman Walsh

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