Re: [docbook] Why use DocBook when there is HTML?

[Jirka Kosek <jirka@kosek.cz>]

Mauritz Jeanson wrote:
> Mark Pilgrim abandoned DocBook in favour of HTML for "Dive Into Python 3".
> See
> http://diveintomark.org/archives/2009/03/27/dive-into-history-2009-edition/.
> 
> The author used DocBook for the previous edition of his successful book. But
> now he says that he has no use for DocBook anymore.
> 
> What are your thoughts about this? 

Mark mentions some missing features directly in article. But as he needs
only HTML output for his own purposes and typesetting is not performed
from XML sources it might make sense.

Personally, I can't imagine writing book in anything else then in
DocBook. Especially when XSL-FO implementations are mature enough to
prepare PDFs which can go directly to print shop. E.g.:

http://www.kosek.cz/knihy/phpxml/php5xml-ukazka.pdf

The key features of DocBook for writing book for me are

-- ability to modularize content: each chapter is in separate file, each
source code is in separate file and everything is assembled dynamically
using XIncludes

-- all objects are automatically numbered, ToC/index are automatically
genereated, xrefs are automatically updated, ...

-- I'm completely shielded from final formatting, this is handled by
stylesheet

-- I can turn book into another output format if necessary

			Jirka

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