[Doc-SIG] Re: Some random thoughts

[Laurence Tratt]

Karl EICHWALDER wrote:

> I've the feeling you just start to re-invent the minimization features
> of SGML.  Why not using SGML?  SGML is _not_ "verbose", some
> implementations of SGML are verbose, intentionally (TEI and DocBook);
> but QWERTZ (linuxdoc) is terse.

Personally I'm not that worried (but take it from me, I don't think you'd
have many happy people on this sig if you used SGML inline - SGML is
probably a little over the top), but the decision has already been taken to
a certain extent. We're supposed to get on with StructuredText or - at least
- something resembling StructuredText.

My main worry is that we will do what has happened so many times before, and
talk and talk and talk and not get anything done (discussions about this
have been going on for years). To a large extent, something is better than
nothing. The Java community has not only stolen a march on us by having
javadoc, they've had it for *ages* and they use it on virtually *everything*
and are thus reaping the rewards. And their markup is reasonably minimal
<wink>.


Laurie