[ZDP] FW: [ZDP] Re: Structured Text in Vars/DTML Methods

[Shaw, Howard]

Sorry, I realized I forgot to cc this to the list.

Howard Clinton Shaw III


> ----------
> From: 	Shaw, Howard
> Sent: 	Sunday, March 07, 1999 12:26 PM
> To: 	'John Eikenberry'
> Subject: 	RE: [ZDP] Re: Structured Text in Vars/DTML Methods
> 
> SGML is not like a different version of HTML. It is a whole 'nother
> level of abstraction, such that HTML is an 'instance' of SGML. What
> you really should be looking at is not SGML per se, but rather SGML as
> combined with the DocBook SGML DTD, which defines an 'instance' of
> SGML in the same manner that the W3C HTML DTD defines HTML as an
> 'instance' of SGML. 
> 
> XML, btw, is not an 'instance' but a modified subset containing minor
> incompatibilities. Basically, it is SGML minus the 70% that most
> people will never need, plus the 10% that makes it work well with the
> web. All valid XML is valid SGML, but many SGML documents and most
> HTML documents are not valid XML. For example, XML does not permit
> implicit tags. (Actually, I think XML containing self closing tags may
> not be valid SGML. I'm not certain on that.)
> 
> The Docbook SGML DTD is valuable for consideration, not because of any
> particular inherent benefits, but because it jives with the Linux
> SGMLTools and is designed for the specific purpose of producing
> documentation. It defines a high level abstract form of documentation,
> from which SGMLTools generates a document in one of several formats,
> such as info, LaTeX, HMTL, etc.
> 
> So, if (and here I am on shaky ground, as I know absolutely nothing
> about this StructuredText you have been speaking of) you can hack the
> StructuredText parser to produce a document that conforms to the
> Docbook DTD (DTD stands for Document Type Definition, and is a part of
> SGML and XML, and defines an 'instance' of one or the other), then the
> Linux tools can bring HTML, et al out of it. Assuming your
> StructuredText provides the internal mechanisms for specifying the
> intent of portions of the text, and internal and external
> cross-references, it might be sufficiently powerful to generate the
> required result.
> 
> For anyone interested in writing Docbook SGML directly, look up the
> psgml package for emacs.
> 
> Later,
> Howard Clinton Shaw III
> ----------
> From: 	John Eikenberry[SMTP:jae@kavi.com]
> Sent: 	Friday, March 05, 1999 3:08 PM
> To: 	Zope Documentation Project
> Subject: 	Re: [ZDP] Re: Structured Text in Vars/DTML Methods
> 
> On Fri, 5 Mar 1999, Martijn Pieters wrote:
> 
> > At 14:57 05/03/99 , Pavlos Christoforou wrote:
> > 
> > I really do think all submissions should be structured text, but
> making it
> > an option like that would be fine as well.
> 
> From the POV of being able to convert the FAQ into SGML, it would seem
> to
> me that having the FAQ in structured text would be the best. That way
> I
> could just take the structured text formatter, and hack it to produce
> SGML
> instead of HTML. Naive?
> 
> ---
> 
> John Eikenberry
> [jae@kavi.com - http://taos.kavi.com/~jae/] 
> ______________________________________________________________
> "A society that will trade a little liberty for a little order
>  will deserve neither and lose both."
>                                          --B. Franklin
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