Hello, (Replying to everyone, but we should probably strip the Cc: list afterwards.)
Pierre Neidhardt <[email protected]> skribis: > This must be the computer program I've been waiting for the longest time! > (Roughly 10 years...) Heheh. :-) > 1. Is there any procedural graphics capability? Here I'm thinking TikZ, > Asymptote, etc. TikZ turns "programming" into a much dreaded nightmare > and while Asymptote makes it a bit more approachable, it still suffers > from a language that has more ill-designed "features" than C++. No, there’s no such thing. There’s a high-level pie chart package that simply generates Lout or Ploticus code currently, but that’s about it. > 2. What about page formatting capabilities? Can Skribilo generate, say, > a letter? No, it just relies on Lout or LaTeX/ConTeXT to do that. All it does is generate code for these. > 3. How is it related to other GNU projects? Is it used anywhere? I don’t think it’s much used by other projects. :-) Now, with an improved backend plus a Texinfo frontend (a “reader” in Skribilo parlance, which could use Guile’s stexi modules), it could become an option for some existing manuals. > 4. Skribilo's manual is available in HTML / PDF format, but not in > Info. Strange, is there a good reason for it? I like Info :) If you install it, you’ll get the Info manual. But note that the Info backend still leaves a lot to be desired. > 5. This seems to be in direct competition with Racket's Scribble (which > I haven't really tested either). Is there a good reason for not merging > the two projects? What are the differences between the two? The two projects are similar in spirit, yes. I think Scribble is a bit younger but it’s also more widely used and maybe more featureful nowadays. Scribble uses Racket, Skribilo uses Guile, and there are some differences (for example, I think the document processing phases work differently.) But anyway, you tell me! > 6. I didn't know about Lout: the project page is rather empty and the > description very scarce. If I understand correctly, it's an alternative > to TeXlive as a PDF rendering backend. If so, then it's a brilliant > initiative, I find TeXlive so bloated it is hardly manageable. Lout is the only practical purely functional document layout system that I know of, and yes, it’s not very well know. The implementation has a few shortcomings though, in particular that of not supporting Unicode. > 7. As for Lout, I had never heard of Skribilo before. Maybe it's just > me... But I think it would be worth reaching out for a broader > audience. The vast majority of the academia has been stuck with LaTeX > for too long, I can hear the far cries of too many people begging for > some progress! :D I’d say that Skribilo is on the same level as Docbook, but not really on the same level as LaTeX: it doesn’t do any of the low-level layout stuff. That said, it’s usually simpler to work with, though because it “compiles” to LaTeX/Lout, you also occasionally have to be aware of these lower-level tools. Thanks for your feedback! Ludo’.
