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Subject:Re: Rant: Giving up on XML From:Janice Gelb <janice -dot- gelb -at- sun -dot- com> To:techwr-l -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com Date:Thu, 15 Mar 2007 08:15:57 +1100
Gene Kim-Eng wrote:
> My point is, I'm not going to "learn XML and XML technology,"
> in order to write documents. If I have to "learn" a "technology"
> instead of that technology evolving to support my needs, I'm
> not likely to adopt it. And neither are most other writers whose
> companies grumble about why they need to have a copy of
> FrameMaker or Acrobat Pro instead of being able to work in
> Word and some open source PDF printer driver.
>
This is not a valid comparison. Requiring
writers to write with tools that do not
support the type of documentation they need
to produce is not the same as saying that a
move to a structured tagged environment is
going to require some education in both the
tools and the paradigm shift necessary to
work successfully in that environment.
I certainly agree that companies should
carefully examine whether the benefits of
moving to a structured tagging language
and output tools are worth the upheaval
to their documentation staff. For small
companies with limited documentation sets,
the effort is probably not worth it. But
it sounds like you're saying that the effort
would never be worth it to you no matter
what the potential benefits might be to
your documentation.
-- Janice
***********************************************************
Janice Gelb | The only connection Sun has with
janice -dot- gelb -at- sun -dot- com | this message is the return address
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