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Why not XML? XML was made for documents, they were writing a document.
by insertnickname 10y ago
Why not XML? XML was made for documents, they were writing a document.
- girzel 10y agoFor an actual typing-on-the-keyboard format, it seems like almost anything would have been better, particularly given the number of markup languages that can translate trivially into XML. I may have misunderstood -- he was actually typing in XML tags as he wrote the book, right?
- rsc 10y agoYes, they did. I saw the XML and it didn't look much different from well-written HTML. The amount of markup you need for a book is fairly minimal: h1, h2, p, b, i, c (code font), ix (index entry). Think of it as a customizable HTML.
- Sharlin 10y agoXML may have been made for documents but it is certainly one of the worst language families ever for actually typing documents by hand.
- insertnickname 10y agoWhat would you use instead that would allow you to define your own markup? LaTeX? \em{Hello} isn't much better than <em>Hello</em>.
- vbezhenar 10y agoMillions of websites are made with writing HTML by hand and it's certainly not that bad.
- tptacek 10y agoYou don't have to write the XML tags while you type. The hardest part about writing long-form technical prose is writing long-form technical prose. You can concentrate on getting that right, in the editor of your choosing, using placeholders for diagrams and layout elements. Then, in a second pass, mark the text up.
- clebio 10y agoIndeed. And it's odd no one's mentioned Pandoc yet.
- jdeisenberg 10y agoAlso, XML + XSLT gives you the capability to easily transform your original to other formats.