Re: Doc Tasks (was RE: docstrings in Guile!)

["Greg J. Badros" <gjb at cs dot washington dot edu>]

Valentin Kamyshenko <val@kamysh.materials.kiev.ua> writes:

> >>>>> "Greg" == Greg J Badros <gjb@cs.washington.edu> writes:
> 
> Greg> But if we can convert to TeXInfo from DocBook (and rumour has it
> Greg> that the tools are there, though I've not had time to try them
> Greg> yet), then these problems go away and we're able to just use the
> Greg> strictly richer SGML markup.
> Is not it the contradiction?
> If the SGML markup is richer that TeXInfo, than it will be impossible
> to convert .sgml to .texi without loosing the quality of the output,
> is not it?

It's not a contradiction: we do end up losing quality of the output, but 
only while we feel that the TeXInfo tools serve our needs better.  I'd
rather lose quality as we munge stuff than start out with something with 
lower value and preserve that exactly through the processes.

Think of it in terms of audio mastering:  you want an all digital
perfect initial recording, even if ultimately you'll distribute an
analog cassette or an 56kbps mp3.

> As for me, I consider the whole ideology of .sgml as a step in a wrong 
> direction (of course, this is my subjective opinion). If I want to
> have a good-looking document, I'd use the whole power of TeX, and
> would not limit myself to undefined subset of tags, that are present
> in SGML. If I want to have .html, I'll just write .html (although, as
> for me, it is much less convenient for reading documentation, that
> .info). If I want to have good-commented source, I use CWEB, or
> fweb. And so on.

But the point of Docbook markup is to permit getting any of those
formats from a single source by enriching that source substantial.

> So, the question is: what would we like to have as the output, when
> using .sgml? I have an impression, that, actually, we are speaking
> implicitely about the generation of .html document and/or .texi, or
> getting it printed (as the .tex file, again?). Why not to use
> texi2html for these purposes, if somebody likes it?

That's fine and if we can convert nicely to TexInfo from SGML, then
we're all happy since those tools will be available to us.

Greg