Re: Documentation for DSSSL

[Paul Tyson <ptyso@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Ralph Ferris wrote:
>...
> My plan right now is to start pulling together some basic material and
> putting it up on our Web site. For the larger effort, there probably needs
> to be some kind of "editorial board" to organize the process, or at least
> know who is doing what. We can continue discussing on this list how we
> might move ahead or some people may want to communicate with me directly.
> 
>...

Con't this feed into Tony's DSSSL Handbook
(http://www.mulberrytech.com/dsssl/dsssldoc/handbook.html)?  If we each
took on a few chunks of that effort we could fill in the blanks pretty
quickly.

I think a "project editor" (or possibly "editors" if they can work well
together) would be more effective than an "editorial board" for
organizing the project and enforcing a consistent style.  But it would
also be nice to line up a panel of experts to review contributed
material for technical accuracy.

On a related topic,
Adam Di Carlo wrote:
> ... If you look at
> SICP, the authors actually teach scheme kinda "on the sly" while
> really teaching about abstraction, modularity, and good programming
> style.
> 
> I think a DSSSL book should be written similarly.  Don't actually
> teach Scheme per se, but just introduce the bits of syntax one by one,
> explaining as you go.  Keep the user focussed on the problem of how to
> render documents.  I think such an interative, approach, starting very
> simply and working up to complex DSSSL examples, would work quite
> well.
> ...

Adam is spot on.  Gradus ad parnassum.  Although I don't think this
should supplant a "Handbook" approach, it could be an inspiring
invitation to beginning users.

Paul Tyson


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