Re: Q) Re: DOCBOOK-APPS: Converting from DocBook/SGML to DocBook/XML

[Sebastian Rahtz <sebastian dot rahtz at computing-services dot oxford dot ac dot uk>]

Ian Castle writes:
 > and jadetex simply expanding them, seems fairly natural.... I can look
 > at the output of jade and follow through the expansions of those macros
 > by reading the single jadetex.dtx file... Of course, this doesn't mean
you are doing well, then :-}

 > Passivetex seems to me (and again I plead ignorance - I've spent a lot
 > more time looking at jadetex.dtx) to operate on a different scale - the
 > input is something that is nothing like TeX in syntax or style (fo) - so
 > passivetex has to do a whole lot more - and xmltex comes into play as
fair point

 > ... But I would have to go further up the learning curve to be able to
 > do things with passivetex - which, I assume, needs further development,
 > rather than just a bit of tinkering.

broadly similar, I'd say, actually. Jadetex is better in some ways,
Passivetex better in others. What Passivetex needs most of all is
(of course) work on tables, and xmltex needs lots more work on MathML

 > Really, I guess what I meant was that as far as my being able to
 > maintain jadetex for my applications, it is for me somewhat less
 > daunting than the new territory of passivetex.

agreed. but to seriously fix Jadetex, you need skills in C++ and in
TeX, which very very few people have. I do not believe that Jadetex
will ever really make a quantum leap, but a TeX-based FO formatter
might. Then again, a second-generation jadetex could format XML .fot
output from Jade...

sebastian