XML is not the answer. Structured writing may be the answer. XML is one way to implement structured writing. More and more these days, I am hearing technical publication managers (and not a few consultants) talk about the need to “move to XML”. This may be a shorthand way for them to describe a very… Read More »
The “what” in “what you see is what you get” is not always “formatting”. Authors need WYSIWYG (What You See is What You Get) displays to work effectively. This is basic ergonomics. If you can’t see the thing you are supposed to be creating, you will have a hard time creating it well. But while authors… Read More »
Why is writing the only profession untouched by its tools? Larry Kunz strikes a familiar note in his recent blog post, Tools come and go. I’m still a writer. I’m a writer. Once I used a typewriter. Now I use XML editors. If I stay at this long enough, other tools will come and I’ll learn… Read More »
Tom Johnson started the discussion with Structured authoring versus the web. Sarah O’Keefe and Alan Pringle took it up in Structured authoring AND the Web. My turn: Structured authoring FOR the Web. One of my long term grievances is that structured authoring has been adopted piecemeal. Rather than approaching it holistically as a method that can provide a wide… Read More »
In a comment on my Content Wrangler article, It’s Time to Start Separating Content from Behavior, Laura Creekmore said (emphasis mine): [T]his conversation has brought to mind some thoughts I’ve had recently, and I think this is an even more difficult issue. Because eventually, we’re going to come up with all the technological fixes we need to resolve the… Read More »
Sometimes microblogging questions require macroblogging answers. Here’s the conversation: @arh: Did @hixie really call XML a “disaster”? Is #techcomm aware of this? http://html5doctor.com/interview-with-ian-hickson-html-editor/ @mbakeranalecta: @arh XML is a disaster. Bad implementation of an essential concept. So is QWERTY. So it goes. @arh: @mbakeranalecta Generally agreed. What concerns me are the #techcomm folks who think XHTML… Read More »
Tom Johnson’s correspondent, Sam from Canada, asks if tool vendors are not more to blame for the slow pace of change in tech comm than tech writers themselves: Hi Tom, I’ve been enjoying your posts along with Mark Baker’s. You both have good points about technical writing trends. I could be totally wrong, but maybe it’s not the tech… Read More »
Every documentation tool has a built in information design bias. When you choose a tool, be it FrameMaker, DITA, AuthorIt, a WIKI, or SPFE, you are implicitly choosing an approach to information design. If you don’t understand and accept the design implications of your tool choice, as many people do not, you are setting yourself… Read More »
Today, I am announcing the launch of a new website, SPFE.info. [EDIT: Information on SPFE has moved to GitHub. See http://mbakeranalecta.github.io/spfe-open-toolkit/] The SPFE architecture is a design for building structured authoring systems. Why would the world, need such a thing when it already has DITA? Why have I spent the last 15 years or so… Read More »
What constitutes a “real” XML editor? The question is perennial, but is made topical by Tom Aldous’ surprisingly shrill defense of FrameMaker as an XML editor. It is unusual for a market-leading company to indulge in myth-busting aimed at tiny competitors. It is an approach more common to the small and desperate. But if we… Read More »