Date: Mon, 19 May 2003 00:09:08 -0700 From: Murray Stokely <murray@FreeBSD.org> To: "Greg 'groggy' Lehey" <grog@FreeBSD.org> Cc: "M. Warner Losh" <imp@bsdimp.com> Subject: Re: DocBook book Message-ID: <20030519000908.E8403@freebsdmall.com> In-Reply-To: <20030519013706.GN77354@wantadilla.lemis.com>; from grog@FreeBSD.org on Mon, May 19, 2003 at 11:07:06AM %2B0930 References: <20030518.095226.115908955.imp@bsdimp.com> <20030518160039.GA25804@submonkey.net> <20030519013706.GN77354@wantadilla.lemis.com>
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On Mon, May 19, 2003 at 11:07:06AM +0930, Greg 'groggy' Lehey wrote: > I have it, and I can't recommend it. Despite the name, it's a > reference, not a guide. For an example of the kind of book I'm > looking for, see http://www.alltel.net/~kollar/utp/. That's about > troff, not DocBook, but it's a well written book. I don't think > anything similar is available for DocBook. I can recommend DocBook TDG strongly if you are trying to author something in DocBook for the first time. The whole point of SGML is that it is a totally different paradigm from something like troff. Authors aren't supposed to have to worry abou the complications of presentation. This book teaches you the tags that have been defined to describe technical content. It is another problem domain (usually dealt with by a separate person) to write an XML application to query that document for semantic information, process the SGML document and turn it into another output format, process the SGML document and create a audio rendering, etc.. The book you reference has chapters on learning vi, Unix fundamentals, and all kinds of typesetting information, all of which is completely irrellevant in the SGML/XML world. I'm sure it's a great book on troff, but it's not a fair comparison. If Warner would like to know more about the process of rendering DocBook SGML files into different output formats, then the wrong question was asked and a different book would have been recommended. - Murray
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