Subject: Re: Scheme Programming Reference From: Paul Tyson <ptyso@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> Date: Thu, 24 Jun 1999 00:40:00 -0500 |
Chuck Robey wrote: > ... > I find it enormously enlightening, when someone suggests a method of > making dsssl more accessible, that there is a strong preference towards > a more scholarly (if well done) computer-science oriented book. The > demonstrated lack of understanding of the *publishing* audience that > dsssl is *supposed* to serve makes it quite clear why dsssl is now and > will remain a guarded toy of elites. > > You are not trying to inform analysts, you want to inform writers. This > seems actually droll, to even consider that any author would be willing > to consider such a book. Have you known any *non-technical* authors? >... > Who is (or should be) dsssl's intended audience? > ... Chuck makes some good points and reminds us of some good questions. I don't agree that we have to conform to existing expectations of the "publishing" audience in order to "be successful". The art of publishing (as with all practical arts) is informed by a set of paradigms that have evolved from primitive practices and been adapted to many different technologies. (For instance, I once heard that serifs on latin characters are holdovers from the stonecutter's craft.) Electronic typesetting really didn't change any major paradigms of publishing--it just reimplemented them with new technology. Generic descriptive markup, on the other hand, introduces a significant paradigm shift. My interpretation of DSSSL's "lack of success" is that it pushed this paradigm shift too far too fast. (Ditto for HyTime, by the way.) The people who will be using DSSSL (or CSS, or XSL) in the future are probably not the same people who are responsible for applying style to documents for publishing. The roles are changing and will continue to change. The net effect will be to put matters of style under the control of style experts (who may also be authors). Just like the net effect of implementing SGML is to allow writers to again focus on the structure and content of their work. So just because we are not appealing to the current "publishing" audience doesn't mean we are being ineffective. Nor does it imply we are guarding DSSSL as a toy for the elites. We just believe that DSSSL is the most powerful, useful (and yes, elegant) method for processing structured documents that has yet been proposed. And we need to do a better job enunciating those beliefs. Paul Tyson DSSSList info and archive: http://www.mulberrytech.com/dsssl/dssslist
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