Re: DOCBOOK: Re: DocBook 4.0 - SGML or XML?

[Chuck Dale <bug@aphid.net>]

Wrote Karl Eichwalder on Wed, May 31, 2000 at 08:27:43AM +0200:
> Bob Stayton <bobs@sco.COM> writes:
> 
> > I'll be provocative and say that XML has a future
> > and SGML doesn't.  
> 
> Sorry, but XML is SGML.  If you feel the need, do your authoring in SGML
> and convert to XML for processing the documents (or vice versa).

True - the SGML/XML argument doesn't make sense because SGML isn't
comparable to XML. 

But for DocBook it makes a difference as there is DocBook SGML and
DocBook XML.

And at the moment considering the huge amount of XML tool development
going on (IBM, Apache, Sun, Gnome etc etc) compared to the depressingly
small amount of SGML tool development going on (umm who?), it would seem
that doing things in XML makes more sense.

What are the drawbacks in moving to using the DocBook XML DTD as soon as
possible? Would seem to me that lots of fun is ready to be had with
things like Cocoon.

And there might possibly be a powerful free XML editor available within
the millenium as opposed to the dazzling array of dazzling-ly priced
commercial SGML editing options at the moment (umm - ArborText, XMetal,
FrameMaker).

Chuck