173 lines
7.9 KiB
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173 lines
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<title>RE: if SGML is so great...</title>
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[<a href="msg02185.html">Date Prev</a>][<a href="msg02187.html">Date Next</a>][<a href="msg02334.html">Thread Prev</a>][<a href="msg02200.html">Thread Next</a>][<a href="maillist.html#02186">Date Index</a>][<a href="threads.html#02186">Thread Index</a>]
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<h1>RE: if SGML is so great...</h1>
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<ul>
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<li><em>To</em>: LDP <<A HREF="mailto:ldp-discuss@lists.linuxdoc.org">ldp-discuss@lists.linuxdoc.org</A>></li>
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<li><em>Subject</em>: RE: if SGML is so great...</li>
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<li><em>From</em>: Gregory Leblanc <<A HREF="mailto:GLeblanc@cu-portland.edu">GLeblanc@cu-portland.edu</A>></li>
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<li><em>Date</em>: Tue, 2 May 2000 15:41:44 -0700 </li>
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<li><em>Resent-date</em>: Tue, 2 May 2000 18:56:52 -0400 (EDT)</li>
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<li><em>Resent-message-id</em>: <dg6DI.A.W5E.n01D5@murphy></li>
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<li><em>Resent-sender</em>: <A HREF="mailto:ldp-discuss-request@lists.debian.org">ldp-discuss-request@lists.debian.org</A></li>
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<pre>
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> -----Original Message-----
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> From: Gary Preckshot [<A HREF="mailto:garrell@inreach.com">mailto:garrell@inreach.com</A>]
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> Sent: Tuesday, May 02, 2000 2:43 PM
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> To: LDP
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> Subject: Re: if SGML is so great...
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>
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> I think you are completely wrong, here. is the first document was
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> in sgml
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> (and lost, for example), may be you can back translate to sgml,
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> and I am
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> not shure of that, but I can give you ton's of word documents that
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> could
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> never be translated in sgml. :-(
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>
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> I didn't say everything, and there are obviously formats that
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> are difficult or impossible. In fact, I'd be surprised if
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> there was a Word to SGML translator in the first place.
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> It's also obvious that stuff that was originated in some
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> other format can only be translated into a subset of SGML.
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> That may be enough for some authors. Once it gets turned into
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> SGML, something like LyX may be the way to go.
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> In answer to the poster that accused me of dumping anybody
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> with a 486, what I said was it was possible to cater to
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> people with old 486s AND people with newer machines. You guys
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> brought up the issue of slow translation. It isn't a problem
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> for me. The guys with older machines can keep doing things
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> the old way - there's no reason to trash something that
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> already works. However, there's also no reason not to move
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> into the 21st century. After all, Linux has the virtue that
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> it accommodates faster to changes than anything else. Why
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> should LDP be any different?
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> The issue I'm interested in, which is probably bypassing a
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> lot of the people answering me, is that if we want LDP to be
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> accessible to the Windoze world, we have to cater to Windoze
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> authors. That means we need to accept formats (some, at
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> least) produced by Windoze WYSIWYG word processors, or some
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> reasonable facsimiles. In a way, I'm writing an LDP advocacy
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> HOWTO with this thread. Most of the answers I've gotten
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> completely miss the point. You guys are so completely taken
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> with the virtues of SGML and DocBook, it's a religious issue
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> with you, and you offer your own personal experience ("it
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> isn't so hard") while failing completely to understand that I
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> don't give a shit about SGML and DocBook and will be
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> perfectly satisfied never to learn anything about either. I'm
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> 56 and I've been in the computer business since 1964. I've
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> seen maybe 100 different editors in that time and maybe 25
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> different markup languages. I wrote my dissertation by
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> modifying an assembly language version of roff to format my
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> dissertation to University of Arizona rules. I've had it with
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> markup languages. I don't want to hear about it. I want my
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> computer to take care of it and that's the end of it.
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> I'm not a lot different from the people you need to attract
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> as authors. If all you get is nerds that like SGML, all the
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> Linux docs will be written in nerd speak, and the people who
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> we'd like to attract to Linux will be completely turned off.
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> There's a reason HOWTOs are sometimes impenetrable, and that
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> reason is you, guys. What you need is people who are smart,
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> had trouble getting Linux to work, want to write about it,
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> and don't have time for and don't give a shit about SGML.
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> SGML should be an internal matter for the LDP, and the wider
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> author population should never be troubled by it. If they
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> want to access the greater capabilities of SGML, fine, it's
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> there. But most HOWTOs are simply text, and there's no reason
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> to impose the 1% on the 99%.
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I don't give a care whether or not you LIKE sgml, I've given reasons why I
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think it's important for the LDP. These arent' reasons that you should
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write in SGML, but reasons that the LDP should use SGML. I had a much
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shorter conversation the other day on the GDP list about licenses, and I'm
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going to use their argument here. You can write documents in any format you
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want, but if you want them to be a part of our "core" collection, then they
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have to be in a useful format to use, namely, SGML. If you supply us with
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an HTML doc, we'll say here's a new HTML doc, it's going in with the rest of
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our HTML docs. We don't provide any "intelligent" searching on these, but
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you can download them and use grep if you want to. If you supply us with an
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SGML (specifically DocBook) document, then we'll say here's a new DocBook
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doc. It's been automatically added to our topical list, and indexed and
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added to our intelligent search tool. Then, 6 months later, when you're
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looking for an example of how to do something, you go to our intelligent
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search engine, and say I want to find all examples dealing with "this"
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topic, and it goes out and says ok, here are my examples, and finds you the
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example you're looking for.
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So, let's just say that I'm not opposed to accepting documents in formats
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other than SGML, but they're "second-class citizens" in my mind, and should
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be treated as such. The documents, not the people.
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Greg
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--
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<strong><a href="msg02187.html">Re: Something I would like to see</a></strong>
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