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


"Dale P. Smith" <dpsm@bigbird.en.com> writes:

> > 
> > > A few questions.  What do you think about using Docbook instead of texinfo
> > > markup?  The official documentation is now out (available on the web!
> > > http://www.oasis-open.org/docbook/documentation/reference/html/docbook.html;
> > > but you should buy a copy so Norm gets money!)
> > 
> > That's a non-free documentation owned by a publishing company. It is exactly
> > the sort of thing that the GNU project does not need. I hate to be rude but
> > the texinfo format has some nice things about it, one of which is that you
> > can learn it in an hour using only free-software tools and free-software
> > documentation. OK, it doesn't support a lot of fancy features but what it does
> > it does well, and it does enough for my documentation needs.
> 
> When scwm went with a sgml style markup, I wanted to say something, but since
> I am basically incoherent I didn't.  I don't want to make the same mistake.
> 
> Please use texinfo.  Besides the above arguments, it just looks nicer.  There
> is good support for it in emacs.  I believe it has grown over time, features
> being added as they were needed.

We can argue over looks and style all day so I won't.

There's good support for SGML in Emacs, too.  And docbook has grown over
time, as well.  The primary advantages of DocBook are that it provides
far richer markup and is supported much more widely by tools and the
industry.

Greg

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