[Doc-SIG] XML Conversion Update

[Mark Hammond]

>   I'm currently able to parse all the LaTeX markup and
> generate either
> XML or SGML.  The structure of the output is very similar to

Excellent!

>   I am not at all decided on a DTD to use.  I see three options:

Im pretty ignorant about this.  I did look into the docbook DTD, and it is
indeed complex.  However, it also appears that much of it is optional.

It seems that if a reasonable subset of the docbook features could be used
and documented for use in Python it would be simpler to use, and save
reinventing the wheel.

A big benefit of DocBook that I see is that it may be possible to get
professional printers to print hard-copies.

However, our own custom DTD would also be fine, as in reality it is only
the Python community that will use it, and also provide the tools.

An interesting possibility is to use the new PDF routines developed by Andy
et al.  In conjunction with the XML tools, I believe it would be fairly
simple to generate a very pretty PDF version of the docs - which would be
very cool.

Further, a standard DTD would definately encourage me (and hopefully
others) to use it.  I have been thinking about this for some time, and I
feel confident that I could massage my documentation tools to generate
whatever DTD we decide.  This would provide advantages to all users, as a
single suite of tools could be used to provide consistent and professional
documentation for many extensions...

I just realised I havent said much at all - really just offering
encouragement that this is great news, definately the right direction, and
I will definately utilize this for my own stuff.

Mark.