Re: Making It Easy For New Authors (was Re: Style Guide)

[David Lawyer <dave@lafn.org>]

On Tue, Oct 10, 2000 at 02:37:39PM -0400, Mark Komarinski wrote:
> David Lawyer wrote:
> > I think that this problem needs immediate attention and that a new
> > author need not understand what a DTD is, what a DSSSL is, etc.  I
> > wrote a HOWTO without having any idea what these things were.  A new
> > author that wants to get started quickly should start out with
> > another HOWTO in LinuxDoc source and then just "fill in the blanks".
> > In other words change the name, date, title, paragraph content etc.
> 
> I think we're now crossing the line between "someone who wants to
> write a document" and "an LDP author who wants to maintain a
> document".  Just plain writing a document and sending it to the LDP
> isn't enough (unfortunately).  The author will need to know how to
> validate, how to install the DTD/jade, how to view the resulting
> output, and how to use CVS.  This ain't easy, and the LAG covers all
> those points.

With LinuxDoc one just gets the packages from their distribution (and
may find they are already installed on their PC).  Why does one need
to know how to use CVS?  I just email in my updates.  It's all
relatively easy.  For validation I just run sgml2txt and sgml2html.
I know I should do more validating, but it usually comes out OK

> Using outdated DTDs will shoot ourselves in the foot.  We need to
> get with the times and use some recent (and better documented) DTDs.

I don't agree that it's outdated.  LinuxDoc  should be renamed and
promoted as a simple system of documentation for small businesses,
organizations, creating simple webpages, etc.

			David Lawyer


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