FreeBSD and (Open)Jade

[Allan Bowhill <kosmos@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Welcome to the list. Chuck really makes his rounds! :)

> >From our point of view, the killer missing feature from our current
> toolbox is a way to go from DocBook to *roff.  A colleague, Chuck  
> Robey, is currently working on this using XML and XSLT, but I haven't
> delved too deeply in to those.  This is partly so that we can get
> Postscript output without needing TeX installed[1], and partly to see
> how feasible it might be to move to DocBook as a manual page format
> at some point.

I know little about *ROFF and Tex, but that sounds like the right
approach.

I compile manuals and online help for tax forms in a couple of products
for a tax preparation software company. Everything is done using
DOS/Windows ports of GNU utilities. (FreeBSD is used at the _home_
office, of course!)

Although not the central feature of our SGML system, Jade is used to
produce RTF as a jump-point to other desired file formats to deliver to
our customers. Choosing an output format that serves as platform for
easy processing to other formats is important in making SGML work in the
economic sense.

It's just as important to have a good short-hop transformation tool like
COsT around to do SGML -> HTML (or whatever ML). The COsT extension to
TCL, like other premium SGML tools has been somewhat trampled in the
XML stampede.

Evolutionary changes that make webmasters drool are not always the
best bet for institutionalized projects. I'm sure there are enough of
these to keep (Open)Jade viable for quite some time.

> I've only just subscribed to this list -- I'd heard some disturbing
> rumours that folks such as James Clark were saying "DSSSL is dead,
> XSL is the future" and wanted to find out for myself what the situation
> was.

I'll forward James' comments. Given the interest of people in this
list, Jade should be renewed by the change.


--Allan
  kosmos@xxxxxxxxx



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