Re: [PLUG] Open Source Equivalent of WordPerfect

[Rich Freeman <r-plug@thefreemanclan.net>]

On Mon, Nov 19, 2018 at 3:17 AM K.S. Bhaskar <ksbhaskar@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> Markup languages are great for large documents (whose size means
> that they are often maintained by multiple people over long periods
> of time) and where you want to separate the content from the
> presentation. We maintain all our user documentation using git
> (on GitLab, mirrored to GItHub). For example, the reStructured
> Multi-Language Programmers Guide above is published as a web page at
> https://docs.yottadb.com/MultiLangProgGuide/ and we can also generate
> PDFs and ePub should we want to.
>

While I certainly agree that this is the right way to go, I will just
chime in and point out that in non-IT companies something like this is
almost impossible to sell, except perhaps in very small niches where
the requirements are very harsh and the people involved are highly
specialized.

If I had a 150 page document at work, such as a requirements
specification, it would be almost impossible to sell working with it
in markup vs just editing it in Word.  Even purely technical documents
get maintained in Word because explaining markup to the folks managing
that stuff would be painful.  Adoption of software like requirements
managements tools is never widespread, and these tools are often
abandoned before being replaced, often involving a transition through
Word.  (Imagine taking your markup, converting to Word/PDF/etc,
editing that over time, then consider importing that into a new markup
format.)

For larger documents of any kind though I certainly agree that
separating structure from content makes it far more manageable.
Besides markup, databases are another obvious solution when you really
want to focus in on the content.

-- 
Rich
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