Re: Giving up on XML

Subject: Re: Giving up on XML
From: "Gene Kim-Eng" <techwr -at- genek -dot- com>
To: <techwr-l -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com>
Date: Thu, 15 Mar 2007 08:17:39 -0700

Actually, for the authoring tool examples you cite, the answer is
none. Each of them comes with a reasonable set of default templates
and is able to import content and styles from other authoring tools
in a usable form with a minimum of fuss. You may not be able to
make them jump through hoops right out of the box, but you can
use them to create a document. The originator of this thread wasn't
even trying to "convert" an existing Frame or Word document into
XML and preserve its formatting, but had a bunch of XML content
files and was just trying to figure out how to assemble them into
*a* document.

Keep in mind that I never said that XML technology was inherently
useless, merely that in its present state is is primarily useful only
for people who have the time to spend learning to tinker with what
goes on under the hood or the budget to hire someone else to do
so for them. In that sense, as the next universal document authoring
standard that will sweep our current methodologies under the rug
the way its most enthusiastic proponents have presented it, it is
"not ready for prime time." I personally have confidence that some
day some company is going to roll out a tool that enables us to
import a Word or Frame template into XML-usable style definitions,
import content from same and convert paragraphs into XML blocks,
then build structure out of them and move them around by dragging
and dropping, at a price that competes with tools like FrameMaker.
It just hasn't happened yet

Gene Kim-Eng



----- Original Message -----
From: <eric -dot- dunn -at- ca -dot- transport -dot- bombardier -dot- com>

For comparison, how many writers absolutely need to know how to create a
Word or FrameMaker template in a department? Only one really. The rest
just apply formats. Or, how many people in a department need to know the
inner workings and setup of Robohelp or Webworks to generate help files?
How many need to know the inner workings of ASP, PHP, PERL, or what ever
other technology/language is used by the server for the corporate webpage
content?


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References:
Re: Giving up on XML: From: eric . dunn

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