Obviously, that's not XML.

If this is based on experience, please relate the details. Point of fact, no has ever said that the raw source to LP has to be readable. Nor is the output limited to 'Whitepaper' style prose— I use it for normal day to day library documentation. To paraphrase, the whole point of XML is information tagging…once that is done, you transform it into whatever you want. And there is nothing in that concept that precludes LP or for that matter XML-LP. Have you actually looked at approaches like CWEB and NUWEB? If “What I really want is a simple markup that's easy to type…” then you are talking about a wheel that has already been invented, tested and used to a fare-thee-well.

All of that aside, the reason I keep harping on the combination of XML and LP is that regardless of how you get there, XML is a stronger base for transformation than the original LP concept. So if you take the LP idea of starting with a simple markup language and combine that with conversion into XML, then I believe the sky is the limit on the possible transformations. Further, if you embrace the perlish 'Lazy is good!', then using a hybrid system makes good sense. For those things that LP already does, use an existing setup, typically a language non-specific LP, like NUWEB or one of the others (there are many.) For output not anticipated by LP, slap a Perl filter on your easy markup and let it rip! The posted comments about XSL being obviated by CSS is arguable…actual textual transformations can't be done in CSS, but are the bread and butter of XSL. I hadn't thought of it as an example before, but I actually use of form of this hybrid every time I post a bibliography on one of my web pages. The source is kept in a text file formatted in what is called BibTeX. It can be used in LP (gets converted into either html, pdf, or LaTeX) as is. For the web, I perl-filter it to XML and display using XSLT. This leverages 'working' code written by others with my own efforts, and is an open ended solution too boot!

Obviously all of this babble is based on my idea of a good time, and at a guess, your mileage probably would vary. Not important, what is important is your goal. The more people that make this journey, the more choices we will all have, simply because there will be more solutions! Good luck,and let the monastery follow along.

hsm

p.s. Source into whatever form your editors want shouldn't be a problem…

In reply to Re: Re: Re: XML documentation formatting and transformations by hsmyers
in thread XML documentation formatting and transformations by John M. Dlugosz

Title:
Use:  <p> text here (a paragraph) </p>
and:  <code> code here </code>
to format your post, it's "PerlMonks-approved HTML":


  • Posts are HTML formatted. Put <p> </p> tags around your paragraphs. Put <code> </code> tags around your code and data!
  • Titles consisting of a single word are discouraged, and in most cases are disallowed outright.
  • Read Where should I post X? if you're not absolutely sure you're posting in the right place.
  • Please read these before you post! —
  • Posts may use any of the Perl Monks Approved HTML tags:
    a, abbr, b, big, blockquote, br, caption, center, col, colgroup, dd, del, details, div, dl, dt, em, font, h1, h2, h3, h4, h5, h6, hr, i, ins, li, ol, p, pre, readmore, small, span, spoiler, strike, strong, sub, summary, sup, table, tbody, td, tfoot, th, thead, tr, tt, u, ul, wbr
  • You may need to use entities for some characters, as follows. (Exception: Within code tags, you can put the characters literally.)
            For:     Use:
    & &amp;
    < &lt;
    > &gt;
    [ &#91;
    ] &#93;
  • Link using PerlMonks shortcuts! What shortcuts can I use for linking?
  • See Writeup Formatting Tips and other pages linked from there for more info.