RE: DSSSL Documentation Project

[Bill Raynor <braynor@xxxxxxx>]

> 
> Of course this is the right place to ask questions about DSSSL. (And BTW I
> never used the term "outsiders").  But maybe we should take a hint from
> Usenet and, in the interim while the documentation project is largely
> unfinished, publish an FAQ.  For example, I think somebody asks a question
> .....
Given the recent announcements from the sgml-tools people, there will soon
be a lot more of us (newbie's) wandering around and bleating the same
questions. 

As a newbie who's flailing around, I'd really appreciate some guidance. 
I've found B. DuCharme's book invaluable in figuring out which pieces
to have where and norm walsh's site similarly useful for playing with the 
docbook dsssl. A FAQ that laid out a road-map to this area would be 
very well recieved.

Steps that helped me (not in the order I discovered them:)
1. get Xemacs 20.? (unix) or NTemacs and install psgml.
2. visit www.ora.com/davenport and grab the docbook dtd
3. visit www.berkshire.org/~norm/docbook/ and
   a. read everything there
   b. download the current docbook dsssl
4. visit www.jclark.com and pick up jade for your platform(s).
   avoid reading the documentation too much, as its written for 
   gods and wizards. (what are all those utilities for?)
5. test using Norm Walsh's examples and carefully contemplate the 
   error messages from jade, nsgmls, etc. ( true "Guru Meditation Errors")
6. if you can get that to work, then go to the dsssl docbook/test 
   directory and compile (?) and print an rtf version of xbook.sgm.
   Similary print all the *.sgm files in that directory, and merge the
   two sets of documents together to get an idea of what does what.
7. Go to Paul P's site and D. German's to look at their dsssl tutorials 
8. visit www.sil.org/sgml and become overwhelmed.
9. Buy DuCharme's book, read it and try it (his home page has all the 
   text files. shoulda been on the CD)
10. Send polite email to some of the wizards and hope for a reply. 
   (Thanks guys, you know who you are...)

I've left out a great deal of the tail chasing and pounding the head 
on the floor steps. 
Some useful lisp/scheme references would be also helpful (less intense
than the Sussman et.al. wizard book) I've found the following useful:
1. "Writing GNU Emacs Extensions" - 
2. "The Little Schemer" (i just found that one) 
( I just want to tweak existing stuff...)
However there's a lot there that doesn't appear to apply to DSSSL, and
similarly a whole bunch of in DSSSL that doesn't appear to be scheme
(too me at least). I've been dipping into the ISO DSSSL spec, but that's 
not very "user friendly." I don't think its designed for the casual 
readers :-}. 

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