[Matrix-SIG] RE: Authoring tools (was Active arrays)

[Rodgers, Kevin]

	David Ascher wrote:
	[deleted]
	>sequence that I use all the time in other software causes a line to
be
	>deleted w/o any possibility to recover)  Overall I think that the
state of
	>the world is pretty rotten when it comes to collaborative
authorship outside
	>of the world of Microsoft, which I realize we can't use.


	Far and away the best tool I've ever used for this sort of thing is
Interleaf.  It was designed from the ground up to be an environment for
production of long, structured documents by many authors collaborating.  It
works on Windows and Unix (I don't know about Mac).  It is pretty expensive,
though. True story: my former company was putting together a technical
proposal in 1996, using Word.  They had lots of problems, and called up
Microsoft.  M$ said something along the lines of, "You idiots, Word wasn't
intended to do large, structured documents!  Use Interleaf, or something
like that!"

	I suspect one of the main points against FrameMaker (and Interleaf,
Word, etc) is that they COST MONEY.  I tend to agree that it's kinda icky to
use expensive proprietary tools to document an open source collaborative
effort (the Python Reference Manual is a different story, since Guido is
more or less solely responsible for that).  But I don't have any solutions
either.

	Since I won't be at the Conference, I'll be looking forward to
anything that materializes there.

	Kevin Rodgers
	krodgers@ryanaero.com