Re: XML-based Help Authoring tools for customized help

Subject: Re: XML-based Help Authoring tools for customized help
From: "Mark Baker" <listsub -at- analecta -dot- com>
To: "TECHWR-L" <techwr-l -at- lists -dot- raycomm -dot- com>
Date: Mon, 15 Dec 2003 16:45:38 -0500


Goober Writer wrote


> No. Docbook is not comparable to FrameMaker. It's
> perhaps comparable to a FrameMaker *template*, but you
> can't compare one technology that can be stomached by
> another.

I have no idea what the second part of that sentence means, but lets
acknowledge that words do (legitimately) get used in multiple senses.

In the sense that DocBook is the name of a DTD it is indeed comparable to a
FrameMaker template -- a comparison I made (and which David Neeley
vehemently objected to).

But there is also the DocBook "tool chain" that Sean and Bill referred to
and the word "DocBook" can also legitimately be used to refer to the
combination of the DTD and that tool chain. Both Sean and Bill used it in
that sense. It was in that sense the I compared Docbook to Word or Frame and
in that sense the comparison is perfectly applicable.

Now Sean probably feels quite aggrieved that I am claiming this dual use of
the word "DocBook" in this way since I refused to allow him the use "XML" in
a dual sense earlier in this thread. All I can say in my defense on this
point is that I have worked as hard as I can to make some very necessary
distinctions clear in this debate. These distinctions are genuinely
difficult and genuinely necessary and I applaud some of the other
correspondents in this thread for making clear some distinctions that I have
glossed over. There is indeed a complex warp and weft of tools and data
formats out there that cam be combined in many interesting and useful ways.

I just hope that all this heat has produced a little light for someone,
especially poor Karen Casemier who might be forgiven if she felt a little
stunned at the row that her original question provoked.

Mark Baker
Analecta Communications


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References:
Re: XML-based Help Authoring tools for customized help: From: Goober Writer

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