Re: Ada Reference Manual 2012 in info format

[Stephen Leake <stephen_leake@stephe-leake.org>]

Oliver Kleinke <oliver.kleinke@c-01a.de> writes:

> I am writing an XML extension to the formatter. 

Excellent!

> It's not finished yet but does already look promising. Why XML?
> Because it's easily transformable into nearly every other format
> (Original Source format, plain-text, HTML, PDF, DocBook, DITA, info,
> SQL inserts, you name it..) using XSL (I'm talking XSLT + XSL-FO). 

Sounds like a good idea; I'd really like to have a PDF with full
hyperlinks. 

> A major problem of the formatter/RM sources is that they only provide
> partial semantic information about the contents, that IS 1995-style.

What, exactly, is missing? Can you give an example?

If you are trying to translate the Scheme into XML so that the XML
contains _all_ of the information in the Scheme, and saying that
arm_form does not provide the facilities to do that, then you are
probably right; arm_form was not designed to do that. arm_form was
designed to produce readable output formats from the Scheme; the output
formats contain far less information than the Scheme.

If you are saying the Scheme does not have all the information you want,
then I don't understand what is missing.

> Honestly, you should consider converting the sources to a more
> appropriate format. 

There are a _lot_ of requirements on the format. A big one is
"don't lose any history". That's _very_ hard to satisfy in a totally new
format! 

Another big one is "don't waste Randy's time"; it takes time to learn
any new format. It takes _far_ more time to verify that the translation
is _perfect_.

You have not provided any solid rationale for considering such a major
change.

Just be glad the source is machine readable; it might have been in Word,
or Adobe Framemaker!

> Also, the way the Formatter sources are provided sucks major --
> cvsweb, you have to click around a lot until you have a complete set
> of files plus some of the HEAD versions have been broken.

Yes, but that's why I provide a .tar.gz of the full source: 

http://www.stephe-leake.org/ada/arm_info-20120428-src.tar.gz

http://www.stephe-leake.org/ada/arm.html

In Randy's defense, any more sophisticated access would require a hole
in his firewall. I much prefer that Randy spend his time working on ARG
stuff, and maintaining AdaIC.org, than chasing problems due to holes in
firewalls! Anyone doing this work should be able to cope, or build
on my work. It's not like there are hundreds of us!

> Providing a modern HTML version does not exclude the possibility to
> provide a more 'compatible' version, 

You have yet to define what you mean by either "modern" or "compatible",
either by example or description.

It's getting hard to be patient!

> so don't be so obstinate. :-)

I'm seeing far more obstinate behavior from you than from Randy.

-- 
-- Stephe