Re: [docbook-apps] GSoC Project Idea: integrated LaTeX output support for the stylesheets

[Mike Maxwell <maxwell@umiacs.umd.edu>]

On 4/5/2013 4:40 PM, Gábor Kövesdán wrote:
> Em 05-04-2013 22:16, maxwell escreveu:
> > One obvious disadvantage is that we've needed to understand LaTeX (not plain TeX), since many
> > of the tweaks rely on changes to our LaTeX style sheets, or alternative LaTeX packages. But
> > this has been an advantage at the same time, since the LaTeX typesetting is quite mature and
> > has handled everything we've thrown at it.
> >
> > Someone mentioned that dblatex uses Python.  The amount of Python code in dblatex is quite
> > small, and I've never had to do anything with it. The xslt code, otoh, I've had to deal with
> > extensively, although most of that has had to do with odd things we're doing with the alignment
> > of right-to-left text, and some linguistic data structures we've added to the standard DocBook
> > structures.
>
> Having this solution, would you still be interested in a more integrated solution that follows
> the conventions of the DocBook XSL stylesheets and allows tuning with parameters and easy
> customization? Are there any serious problems in dblatex that aren't solved for you? Any
> functionality that you preferred to be implemented in a different way?

Sorry to be late responding; my excuse is that I got married the day after this email.

dblatex does have some parameters for tuning, see 
http://dblatex.sourceforge.net/doc/manual/sec-params.html.  My impression is that dblatex directly 
implements many of the DocBook XSL parameters, and that dblatex handles internationalization the 
same way that DocBook XSL does (although I could be mistaken).

I haven't run into any serious problems in dblatex.  The only thing I would prefer is that the 
longer xslt functions be broken into smaller ones.  When I do a major customization, I have to copy 
and change an entire function, and when the function is long, that's a nuisance.  And if the author 
of dblatex changes that function in a later version, then I'll have to hunt down the diffs between 
my changed copy and the function I copied from, then make those changes in the newer version. 
That's pretty much unavoidable given the way xslt works, but it's easier with small functions.

Or of course if it were done with Python instead of xslt, I'd be still happier, because I understand 
Python reasonably well.  Xslt, otoh, always trips me up when I try to do even simple things.  But I 
guess that's just my personal experience!
--
	Mike Maxwell
	maxwell@umiacs.umd.edu
	"My definition of an interesting universe is
	one that has the capacity to study itself."
        --Stephen Eastmond