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Re: Requiring use of DocBook; LinuxDoc
David Lawyer wrote:
>
> > DocBook is not difficult in any way if you use it like LinuxDoc.
> > What I mean is, yes DocBook can be a total bear if you try and do a
> > much of nifty crap with it but if you keep it simple it is no more
> > difficult than LinuxDoc.
>
> Not so. See my examples at the end of this message.
I looked at the examples. I never learned LinuxDoc, but I know HTML and
have started using DocBook. LinuxDoc is not easier. Manually inserting
tags may be faster because fewer are required and they're typically
shorter, but that only applies after you've learned the shortcuts.
As a new author, I found DocBook very easy to understand and use. The
tags are easy to understand and having to always close them makes visual
parsing easier. The "implied closing" and "implied tags" available in
LinuxDoc only make it harder to learn. If you decide to use verbose
tagging to simplify things, then you may as well use DocBook.
> > In fact it is no harder than HTML.
>
> Possilbly true but HTML is significantly more difficult than LinuxDoc.
That depends on your style. When maintained using a text editor, HTML is
best written using verbose tagging and intelligent use of whitespace.
It's just easier to maintain than minimizing tags and taking shortcuts.
If you write HTML by hand using these techniques, then DocBook is very
easy to learn. Basic DocBook may be easier to learn than HTML precisely
because DocBook's tags are more descriptive. I was able to use DocBook
almost immediately after looking at an example and the list of tags.
Using the shortcuts available in LinuxDoc would have taken much longer.
Without those shortcuts, LinuxDoc is not significantly harder than
DocBook.
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Anthony E. Greene <[email protected]> <http://www.pobox.com/~agreene/>
PGP Key: 0x6C94239D/7B3D BD7D 7D91 1B44 BA26 C484 A42A 60DD 6C94 239D
Linux. The choice of a GNU Generation. <http://www.linux.org/>
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