[Orgmode] Re: DocBook exporter for Org-mode

[Baoqiu Cui]

Hi Gour,

Gour <address@hidden> writes:

>>>>>> "Baoqiu" == Baoqiu Cui <address@hidden> writes:
>
> Baoqiu> It is true that many open-source tools around DocBook are still
> Baoqiu> not perfect, but they should be good enough for most of the work
> Baoqiu> of most users.  Some commercial tools exist and are better, but
> Baoqiu> they are not free.  (I have not used reST, however it does not
> Baoqiu> seem to me that it has more tools than DocBook.)
>
> Well, frankly speaking, I consider that XML simply sucks as authoring
> format. I was playing with FOP several years ago and I'd never replace
> it with TeX typesetting.

I knew it must be FOP that you did not like. ;-) I had similar
experience using FOP, and I (and all other team members) had to find
workarounds when hitting problems in FOP (like formatting footnotes in
lists or tables).  Don't know if you have tried XEP from RenderX.  I
have not found any problems in XEP.

I don't think it's bad to use XML as authoring format, even though I
think TeX would still be the ultimate typesetting tool.

> Baoqiu> I just checked reST markup specifications, and they do look
> Baoqiu> powerful (but not very lightweight).  
>
> Well, reST is, imho, (similar to markdown), much more readable than XML
> with all those brackets.

Many people who don't like LaTeX can say similar things about LaTeX. ;-)
The main problem with all these lightweight markup languages is that
there is a limitation on their expressing power.  They are perfect tools
for quickly publishing blogs, wikis, simple web sites, documentation of
source code, etc., but will quickly hit their limit when they are used
for more serious publishing.

> Baoqiu> Maybe it *is* time to have a standard to unify all these
> Baoqiu> plain-text based lightweight markup languages: Muse, Org, reST,
> Baoqiu> asciidoc, all kinds of *wiki*, doxygen styles, etc. 
>
> Maybe Creole (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Creole_(markup) )?

Thanks for the link!  Haven't heard about it.

> Baoqiu> That may require some code sharing/merging between rst.el and
> Baoqiu> Org-mode, I guess.  :-)
>
> Heh, I'm curious to know more about it. ;)

I don't know much about rst.el, and am still new to Org-mode, so cannot
say much on this. :-)

Thanks,
Baoqiu