Re[2]: Is there a need for a hard copy OpenBSD documentation project?

[PC Drew <drewpc@colorado.edu>]

The people who are interested in doing this documentation project,
should look at PHP's documentation (http://www.php.net/manual)  They've done
an EXCELLENT job documenting their software.  Here's a link to their
about page:

http://www.php.net/manual/preface.php#about

--
PC Drew


Thus spake Fredrik Henbjork on Saturday, September 02, 2000, 2:38:16 AM:

FH> Luke Seubert <lseubert@radix.net> wrote:
>> STeve Andre' on 09/01/2000 9:52 PM scribbled:
>> 
>> > Unless you are pouring over ALL the docs, how many are you apt to  look at
>> > before they are outdated?
>> > 
>> This is an excellent point  - how in the world to keep the documentation up
>> to date?  OpenBSD has a pretty aggressive release schedule!

FH> A possible solution would be to convert all documents to SGML/XML format,
FH> maintain them in that format, and then generate other formats from these
FH> sources. Then one could just generate postscript/pdf via (La)TeX and print
FH> out the documentation one wants in a nice hardcopy format. Generation of
FH> man pages and HTML would also be a very simple thing to do. Since this
FH> solution would result in one single documentation tree it would be very
FH> easy to track changes. It would also have the benefit of providing very
FH> nice ways to generate customized documentation, since you could cut and
FH> paste among the SGML/XML sources and then combine the content with your
FH> own (La)TeX templates. Choosing a SGML/XML template should not be too
FH> hard since there are a lot of examples to look at. Then it would be
FH> easy to write scripts, in Python for example, to parse the current
FH> manpages and HTML and convert them to the SGML/XML format. I could
FH> possibly take the responsibility to write all the neccessary scripts,
FH> but I would like some more discussion on the subject first. :-)