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Subject:RE: Rant: Giving up on XML From:"Chris Vickery" <cvickery -at- arenasolutions -dot- com> To:"Milan Davidovic" <shl_ctf -at- yahoo -dot- ca>, <siliconwriter -at- comcast -dot- net>, "techwhirlers" <techwr-l -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com> Date:Tue, 13 Mar 2007 10:07:17 -0700
Got it in one.
We hired a consultant, who took me from Word only to DocBook and DITA.
His excellent book is available on his website here: www.sagehill.net.
I've always been uncomfortable with not knowing how things work, but I
think with XML/DocBook/DITA, it's ok not to understand every facet of
XSLT. I'm reverse engineering my way to a complete understanding of
editing stylesheets, XSL transforms, etc. I will also mention that it
soothed my soul to attend a recent DITA conference and realize that more
than half of the attendees had used consultants to create their
transforms--when you think about it, it's the same as not knowing what
happens when you print to PDF from Word.
As far as XML editors best for DocBook, I use Syntext Serna, and am
considering moving to Just Systems' XMetal. Both of these are quite
WYSIWYG, and you can modify the editing stylesheet to emulate the
eventual PDF output. Someone asked about the need to know what elements
you can use where, etc. --one of the major benefits of using DocBook or
DITA is that an editor that supports them only allows you to use valid
elements at each insertion point.
My advice is to stick with DocBook. Word, after all, is just doing
similar things that you can't see behind the scenes. Who knows what Word
will do next?
:)
Good luck, and email me with any questions
Chris
-----Original Message-----
From: techwr-l-bounces+cvickery=arenasolutions -dot- com -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com
[mailto:techwr-l-bounces+cvickery=arenasolutions -dot- com -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com]
On Behalf Of Milan Davidovic
Sent: Tuesday, March 13, 2007 7:24 AM
To: siliconwriter -at- comcast -dot- net; techwhirlers
Subject: Re: Rant: Giving up on XML
--- siliconwriter -at- comcast -dot- net wrote:
> After weeks of research, reading and studying, I'm
> throwing in the towel on XML...
> I'm not interested in becoming a
> programmer in order to do my job, which is writing
> manuals, not coding stylesheets.
So, in hindsight, might it have been cheaper to hire a
specialist to set things up and show you how to run them?
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