[Doc-SIG] XML Conversion Update

[Moshe Zadka]

On Thu, 26 Aug 1999, Fred L. Drake, Jr. wrote:

>   I am not at all decided on a DTD to use.  I see three options:
<DocBook, isomorphic to current LaTeX or a new one>

I want to suggest a thesis that the markup used (Language+ XML DTD/LaTeX
style) has little effect on the ease, as long as 
a. There are few optional features
b. There are good templates ready

Personally, when I started to write Python docs, I knew LaTeX but not the
specific Python style. I started from the templates, and looked for
similar things in other docs. My LaTeX knowledge confused me, actually: I
used math to heavy for the HTML conversion work well. This shows that
DocBook is a bad idea /because/ people know it, and would have /too much/ 
freedom for any hope of uniformity.

I vote for a roll-our-own style. As soon as we can get a conversion ready,
there will be plenty of templates ready. More, a roll-our-own, as opposed
to the LaTeX style, could reflect the structure of a Python source file 
more easily (for examples, not seperating the __init__ method from the 
rest of the methods, and putting the generic class description in it).

This is also a bit of an egoism, since it would make the vapourware
PythonML->POD easier.

Just my 0.02$
--
Moshe Zadka <mzadka@geocities.com>. 
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