Re: Quick SGML Query

[Chet Ensign <Chet_Ensign%LDS -at- NOTES -dot- WORLDCOM -dot- COM>]

Robert Busch writes:

> Can anyone recommend a good place to start researching SGML?

Several suggestions. On the Web, you can go to the home page for SGML Open, the
industry consortium, at www.sgmlopen.org. SGML Open maintains links to other
sites and info sources and maintains educational material of their own as well.
Another excellent source is Robin Cover's SGML resources that you can reach
through www.sil.org. Read down through that home page to 'SGML info' or
something like that. There is an enormous amount of info there.

Other resources are: Books

"The SGML Handbook" by Dr. Charles Goldfarb. Published by Oxford University
Press.
"Practical SGML" by Eric van Hervijnen. Don't recall the publisher.
"SGML: An Author's Guide to the Standard Generalized Markup Language" by Martin
Bryan. Published by Addison-Wesley.
"Making Hypermedia Work: A User's Guide to HyTime"by Steven J. DeRose and David
G. Durand.
"The SGML Primer" published by SoftQuad, Inc.
"The SGML Implementation Guide" by Brian E. Travis and Dale C. Waldt. Published
by Springer-Verlag.

Periodicals

"<TAG> The SGML Newsletter" To subscribe, contact SGML Associates at (303)
680-0875.
"EPSIG News" The newsletter of the Electronic Publishing Special Interest
Group. Published by McAfee &amp; McAdam, Ltd. To subscribe, contact McAfee &
McAdam at 1220 Churchville Rd., Bel Air, MD  21014.
"The SGML Source Guide," published by the GCA

Online Resources

comp.text.sgml --  the USENET newsgroup devoted to the lively and highly
entertaining discourse on SGML.
"The SGNL Newswire"  -- a mailing list maintained by Avalanche Development Co.
To
subscribe, send email to "sgmlinfo -at- avalanche -dot- com -dot- "
SGML-L  -- an SGML mailing list maintained at the Unversity of Heidelberg. It
is largely inactive, probably because most of the people subscribed to it are
already busy on comp.text.sgml. To subscribe, send an email message to LISTSERV
@ VM.URZ.UNI-HEIDELBERG.DE ". Leave the subject line blank. The text of the
message must be one line that reads SUBSCRIBE SGML-L.

Organizations

Graphic Communications Association (GCA)  The GCA is a non-profit association
devoted to R&amp;D and education for the printing and publishing industry. GCA
played an early and leading role in the development of SGML and they were early
promoters of its adoption in the United States. For information on GCA
conferences and seminars, contact Joy Blake at (703) 519-8177.

International SGML Users' Group   For information, contact Steve Downie,
Secretary of the SGML Users' Group, at (416) 963-8337.

SGML Forum of New York --  The New York, New Jersey and Connecticut SGML users
group. One of the busiest, most dynamic SGML groups in the country. The Forum's
mailing address is SGML Forum of New York, Bowling Green Station, P.O. Box 803,
New York, NY  10274. You can also send email to "censign -at- lds -dot- com".

SGML Open --  is the industry consortium of SGML products, vendors and
adopters. SGML Open is dedicated to accelerating the further adoption,
application and implementation of SGML. For information, call (412) 264-4258.

> For those of you who feel like offering some specific suggestions,
> here's my situation. One of the books in our set is an API Library
> Reference. Pages and pages of syntax, description, purpose,
> parameters, etc., of C-functions. We'd like to maintain a single
> source for this information (preferably on a UNIX environment) marked
> up in SGML; we'd then like to use this source to produce paper and
> online versions of the same information.

I worked on similar projects. You are absolutely right about its being perfect
for SGML. IBM has done a DTD that is well suited to this sort of application
and the DOCBOOK DTD created and maintained by O'Reilly & Associates is
specifically targeted at UNIX documentation. We're working on a project similar
to that where the SGML source is serving both the paper manual, the electronic
doc set and serving the info to the context-sensitive help system. Also, the
doc set is being authored on both UNIX workstations and PCs running Windows. If
you'd like to send me some more details about your setup, I can give you some
specific suggestions about how to go forward.

Best regards,

/chet

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Chet Ensign                                    Phone: (908) 771-9221
Director, Electronic Publishing     Email: censign -at- lds -dot- com
Logical Design Solutions, Inc.      Email (home): censign -at- interserv -dot- com
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