Date: Sun, 25 Jan 2009 18:21:29 -0800 From: Murray Stokely <murray@stokely.org> To: Chuck Robey <chuckr@telenix.org> Cc: Frank Shute <frank@shute.org.uk>, freebsd-chat@freebsd.org Subject: Re: text formatting tools. Message-ID: <2a7894eb0901251821i6e25bfd3i4c235f946d2e581b@mail.gmail.com> In-Reply-To: <497CE231.5000202@telenix.org> References: <497B77C7.90001@telenix.org> <2a7894eb0901241353l56be13b4s9860b9e949bc9ec2@mail.gmail.com> <20090124224237.GA96097@melon.esperance-linux.co.uk> <2a7894eb0901241449y49391f6aj6414875e8781ea4@mail.gmail.com> <497CE231.5000202@telenix.org>
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On Sun, Jan 25, 2009 at 2:05 PM, Chuck Robey <chuckr@telenix.org> wrote:
> You said that most written things are hierarchical. Sorry, I strongly disagree,
I disagree also. Nobody on this thread said that except you. Your
entire response is based on this significant mis-quote.
What I did say, is that _technical manuals_ are generally
hierarchical, and I was also thinking of some of the same examples you
brought up (scifi books, personal correspondence, etc..) when choosing
which qualifier to use when writing that statement.
You actually agree with this statement later in this mail where you
acknowledge that tech manuals and the handbook benefit from this
approach "but not most things".
> which are easily handled by far simpler tools) very few of them have any need of
> hierarchical database approaches. At least my Physics textbooks, which I'm
My use of hierarchy was based on chapters, sections, and paragraphs,
as I said in my mail. My textbooks all had that. You have moved the
discussion from a hierarchy of chapters, sections, and paragraphs into
one involving "hierarchical database approaches". Please define that
if you want to talk about it. It has not been used by anyone other
than you in this thread.
> formatted in xml. The Handbook, it's a tech manual (you'll agree?) and it would
> be, but not most things.
So you've agreed with a large part of my email here, but framed it as
a disagreement. My mail specifically pointed out the advantages for
technical documentation, and then the bulk of the mail was for the
benefits for the Handbook in particular.
> You comment that most folks know the xml tools better. If that was any kind of
No, I didn't make that comment, Frank did.
Please read the mails to which you respond more carefully. Lets take
any follow ups offline. Or as I said, if you are looking for ways to
get involved with FreeBSD Documentation that don't involve XML there
are plenty of opportunities for that -- lets move this to a more
productive discussion on the doc@FreeBSD.org list.
- Murray
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