Re: Outline for Author's Guide

[Tim <tjbynum@wallybox.cei.net>]

> It seems to me that this a little more complicated than it needs to be.
> Yes DocBook is a large beast but it is not uncontrollable. A quick FAQ on
> what is good practice and not good practice should suffice.

It is *not* too complicated.  This must be done and there are no if ands
or buts about it.

We need a true Author's Guide and there's never been one.  The closest one
that we have now is the HOWTO-HOWTO and even that is lacking quite a bit
(no offense Mark).

Guidelines have to be set and they must be followed.  Withouth putting
this committee together this will *never* happen and they just cannot be
the case.

We're now working with a CVS Repository and if there are no guidelines set
forth now, it will make automating things an absolute nightmare once we
make the transition to DocBook.

I want the authors/maintainers know what is expected of them and I don't
want to leave much to chance.

> I agree with Kendall in regards to the tools. No we don't have the ability
> to just type sgmltools html index.sgml and get what we want BUT we can
> type jade <arguments> <stylesheet> index.sgml and get what we want. 
> Heck, if we stick with specific style sheets we should be fine. Just state
> in the FAQ that we accept these version of the style sheets and these
> "features".

I've talked to Kendall and perhaps I should have worded things
differently.  I do *not* want to roll our own tools out.  Yes there are
tools out there and I'm sure most of us (at least here) are aware of this.
I want the authors/maintainers to know exactly what is out there and how
they can use them.

I am not interested in gathering tools and then turning around and giving
them to the authors and maintainers.  I only want to make them aware of
what is there for them.

I stand corrected and now wish to address the task of creating the AG
(Author's Guide).

-tim


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