From: Jaakko Jarvi (jajarvi_at_[hidden])
Date: 2002-10-29 13:15:54
The lambda docs are written in DocBook. That was my first (and only thus
far) experience on DocBook.
So here is my DocBook experience report.
- DocBook is very very verbose. I used xemacs, which has some shortcuts,
and menus for various tags etc., but still there are a lot of tags to
type/insert/...
- there was is a learning curve, it took a day or two to get going, and
occasional stumbling on the way.
- customizing is not easy (compared to say \newcommand in latex)
- managing citations is better than in plain HTML but still a nightmare
compared to latex/bibtex
In theory one can have a bibtex like citation database in DocBook, but
I couldn't find any tools for creating reasonable formats from such a
database, and I didn't have the time/expertise to start building my on
stylesheets.
Comparisons:
DocBook vs. Plain HTML
DocBook clearly wins. It makes managing internal links much easier,
output is more consistent, you do not need to fix heading levels, ...
DocBook vs. Latex
- Latex may have even longer learning curve, but more friendly to the
author.
- Latex is mature, more so than XML DocBook.
- Latex tends to be geared towards producing paper output, rather
than something that can be rendered on screen with an unknown width.
Cheers, Jaakko