Re: SGML

[Bob Hays <bobhays -at- SPSS -dot- COM>]

In article <9305172029 -dot- AA12898 -at- aitgw -dot- ge -dot- com>, SANDERS_J -at- tbosch -dot- dnet -dot- ge -dot- com
 writes:
> Hi all!

> Well, for anyone who's read the latest STC Quarterly Journal, the latest topic
> is SGML, for Standard General Markup Language. I am therefor officially
> starting a thread about it, with the hope that this topic hasn't already been
> beaten to death here.

> Things to talk about: if you've used it, how you like it, what you think of
> the presentation in the Journal, what you think of the concept (if you haven't
> used it), the possibilities for such a system used widely, and whether all the
> books in the Library of Congress could be converted to an SGML system online.

A few of us here (at work, that is:-), have discussed using SGML as
the central storage format for on-line documentation and help.  That
would then be converted to the desired per-platform format, such as
RTF for Windows, perhaps FrameMaker Hyper-stuff (not a trademark, I
should think:-) for our UNIX systems, etc.

That way we could maintain one base of "manuals" (where manuals is
loosely defined as technical papers, design documents, interface
specifications, tool manuals and help, etc.) that could be read and/or
printed on various platforms.  You could use an appropriate tool(s)
for editing on the user's favorite platform and transfer the info
to/from a central repository, making it possible (hopefully) to even
have a "document index" at some point....

Wide use will required vendors adding SGML filters for their
per-platform/per-application formats.

Didn't see the STC issue yet, so I cannot comment on it....

Have fun! - Bob

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