Am Fri, 02.Apr.1999 um 18:44:02 +0000 schrieb Paul Wagner:
> footing). I don't see any relationship when viewing the linuxdoc/DocBook
> stuff, at least not in the info packaged with LyX 1.0.1 help
> ("Extended.lyx").
I can't speak for the developers here, but the LinuxDoc/upcoming DocBook
support in LyX is above all an additional gift to LyX users. There's no
deep-down SGML/XML support in LyX since (a) LyX is a WYSIWYM frontend to
LaTeX, and (b) LaTeX is a different concept than SGML/XML. The difference
is similar to HyperCard stacks in comparison to HTML.
>From an SGML perspective, LaTeX is a mixture of a structured markup language
(= an SGML/XML Document Type Definition), a stylesheet language (as DSSSL or
XSL in SGML/XML) and an embedded programming language. The SGML/XML concept
is 'cleaner' in that it clearly separates these aspects, and because it
works as a metalanguage, i.e. as a toolkit to create custom, tailor-made
markup languages.
On a practical level, you don't loose much in LaTeX (a) because the internal
syntax is clean and cross-platform, (b) because any missing markup/style
element can be created with embedded TeX code and (c) because countless
ready-made working solutions are already 'out there'. LaTeX's main advantage
is that it _works_, and that it works very well, while SGML/XML is still
lacking implementations, easy-to-use authoring tools (such as LyX...) and,
in the case of XML, complete standardization. I could nevertheless imagine
that some day in the next millenium, LaTeX might be rewritten into a
scientific XML markup language (i.e. an XML-compliant DTD + stylesheet +
extension language).
> Since it has been several months, might I inquire as to the future of
> XML support via LyX? Seems like a natural to me, but I admit to being a
> "newbie". I certainly like what I see already, but I also see XML as
> extremely important all of a sudden (particularly in light of the
> likelihood of being swamped with MS's version of it when Office 2000
> ships this fall).
Strictly speaking, MS is not implementing a "version" of XML, but its own
DTD - just as will do KOffice and Gnome Office. Note that XML is not a
common, unified markup language like HTML or LaTeX, but a toolkit for
creating your own (proprietary) markup language. If all future word
processors "use XML", this in no way will mean that they can read each
other's documents. XML is only a means to clean up the internal syntax and
simplify writing conversion filters between those formats. Authoring
software that allows the use of _arbitrary_ XML DTDs (e.g. "any XML") will
certainly remain the exception and rather difficult to use.
Florian
--
Florian Cramer, PGP public key ID 6440BA05, ICQ 33582613
Permutations/Permutationen - poetry automata from 330 A.D. to
present: <http://userpage.fu-berlin.de/~cantsin/index.cgi>
