On 03/06/2014 07:29 AM, Keith Marshall wrote:
I've kept out of this debate, until now, primarily because I've yet to formulate a defined opinion as to where I stand. However, I would like to contribute a couple of pennyworth, at this juncture.
SGML technologies certainly have their place, but while they continue to generate disgustingly laid out, barely legible, and just downright broken output, such as this example: http://www.catb.org/~esr/writings/taoup/html/ from Eric's own stable, I suspect that the continued future of page oriented formats remains assured.
What a splendid example of what happens when history is ignored (as is the case in so many US federal laws) in exchange for political expediency (and undeserved voter support). SGML is a standard mark-up language. It assumes the SGML will be used as a basis for physical layout by means of an external DTD, as in "document type definition. HTML, a derivative of SGML, benefits greatly from the use of CSS (cascading style sheets), and I can do a lot with CSS that I can do with groff, though it's not as easy. I'm very much a fan of conventional groff with its enhancements. I also dislike reading ebooks on a screen. I nearly always print them out so I can be comfortable and mark the text with pens or highlighters. If I can't get a book in paper and can't print from an ebook "reader", most of the time I won't buy the book. And cloud storage makes me nervous because your documents are always subject to being erased -- especially if you pay a subscription fee for the service -- and are gone from history. Clarke
