From owner-freebsd-chat Sun Jan 5 03:56:52 1997 Return-Path: Received: (from root@localhost) by freefall.freebsd.org (8.8.4/8.8.4) id DAA25347 for chat-outgoing; Sun, 5 Jan 1997 03:56:52 -0800 (PST) Received: from labs.usn.blaze.net.au (labs.usn.blaze.net.au [203.17.53.30]) by freefall.freebsd.org (8.8.4/8.8.4) with ESMTP id DAA25337 for ; Sun, 5 Jan 1997 03:56:46 -0800 (PST) Received: (from davidn@localhost) by labs.usn.blaze.net.au (8.8.4/8.8.4) id WAA19500; Sun, 5 Jan 1997 22:55:54 +1100 (EST) Message-ID: Date: Sun, 5 Jan 1997 22:55:52 +1100 From: davidn@unique.usn.blaze.net.au (David Nugent) To: hoek@freenet.hamilton.on.ca (Tim Vanderhoek) Cc: jkh@time.cdrom.com ("Jordan K. Hubbard"), chat@freebsd.org (FraFreeBSd Chat list) Subject: Re: FreeBSD documentation References: X-Mailer: Mutt 0.56 Mime-Version: 1.0 In-Reply-To: ; from Tim Vanderhoek on Jan 5, 1997 05:18:28 -0500 Sender: owner-chat@freebsd.org X-Loop: FreeBSD.org Precedence: bulk Tim Vanderhoek writes: > > No, it isn't complex. Especially so if you've fiddled with html > > and got the idea of how a markup language works. Same principle > > (html is an sgml subset, with its own dtd). > > I think what people really want (always a dangerous statement) is just a > properly formatted concise tag reference. Reading DTD's to figure that > out (especially the linuxdoc one) is not very fun. Agreed. In fact, I thought I said something similar. :) > I always thought the reason a linuxdoc guide was missing was because it > was only a temporary in-between until docbook replaced it. No idea. > That said, one must admit that docbook is more complicated > than linuxdoc... My .tar.gz file of docbook documentation > is 500k. It's considerably more when decompressed (say 2.6MB > more). And I think its dtd eclipses 100k. OTOH, the most useful subset is about as "complex" as linuxdoc - the problem is sorting out exactly what that is. :-) Sometimes too much documentation can get you buried and be just as frustrating as too little, even if there is a little more hope of seeing the light eventually. Having some examples to go with helps a great deal. I'm no sgml expert, but I've managed a few basic docs and one sizeable one using docbook in the last couple of months. I'm obviously using just a fraction of its capability, however, even if I've managed to work out some things which I couldn't figure at all with linuxdoc. Regards, David Nugent - Unique Computing Pty Ltd - Melbourne, Australia Voice +61-3-9791-9547 Data/BBS +61-3-9792-3507 3:632/348@fidonet davidn@freebsd.org davidn@blaze.net.au http://www.blaze.net.au/~davidn/