Python documentation in DocBook

[David LeBlanc]

> -----Original Message-----
> From: python-list-admin at python.org
> [mailto:python-list-admin at python.org]On Behalf Of A.M. Kuchling
> Sent: Wednesday, November 13, 2002 13:16
> To: python-list at python.org
> Subject: Re: Python documentation in DocBook
>
>
> On Wed, 13 Nov 2002 19:56:28 -0000,
> 	DaveP <DaveP at NEARLYdpawson.freeserve.co.uk> wrote:
> > My wild guess would be that there are today more people
> familiar with XML
> > than there are with \tex.  How long will the supply of tex
> afficianado's
> > last?
>
> That's irrelevant, because random people don't wander in off the
> street and write Python documentation.  The question is not "what
> format do most people know?", in which case the answer is almost
> certainly plain ASCII or Microsoft Word, not DocBook or LaTeX.  The
> question is "what format do the people who actually write
> documentation like?"  And so far that's LaTeX.
>
> --amk

How could it not be relevent? If more people know xml then know \tex, then
the number of random people who might be interested in writing python doc is
apt to be greater if python doc is in xml. It seems to me (I could be wrong)
that the need for \tex effectively bars what is probably the largest group
of python users from contributing to the doc: MS-Windows users.

I do not doubt that xml is able to generate presentations (i.e. html) at
least as good as the current pydoc presentation. I have seen webpages
generated from xml that I considered of high quality - ymmv of course.

I think the advantage of pydoc in xml is THE advantage of xml: it's easy to
slice and dice the document in different ways for different uses. I don't
know \tex, so I don't know if this is as easily done in that markup.

IMO, people don't "know" MS-Word - they push buttons and fill in dialogues.
Isn't there, or couldn't there be, GUI-based document processors based on
docbook? From an economic viewpoint, I think that's likely to be more viable
then a similar \tex processor...

I think the questions should be "How many more people would write python
documentation if it where easy?"

Dave LeBlanc
Seattle, WA USA