Am Sonntag, 13. November 2005 20:29 schrieb Sven Panne:
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As I'm guilty of kicking out the old SGML stuff and introducing DocBook XML, I'd like to add two remarks:
* DocBook XML can be transformed into a very rich collection of output formats: XHTML, HTML Help, DVI, PS, PDF, FO, plain text, etc. etc.
Very right.
* But what's more important: Compared to the more exotic markup mechanisms proposed, it is well-known and extremely well documented. There are tons of web sites, books, articles, etc. etc. about DocBook XML. Proposing more arcane technologies will drastically reduce the amount of people actually contributing to an Open Source project, a fact which is easily overlooked. (On a related note, this is one of my major concerns about the introduction of darcs, but I'll be happy if I'm proven wrong...)
So then, let's stop using Haskell. :-) Honestly, caring too much about how much a certain "technology" is known and used will kill innovation. If something new is really better than what's already there then I want to consider its adoption. Compatibilty, support and the like is also important but it shouldn't be overrated. I don't like it when creativity and true innovation is hindered too much by pragmatic arguments. Nevertheless, I could imagine that DocBook XML does a better job for the GHC documentation than the other things proposed.
Cheers, S.
Best wishes, Wolfgang