[CALUG] April 13 Meeting Announcement -- Intorduction to Asciidoc(tor)

[Bryan Smith]

Rajiv Gunja <opn.src.rocks at gmail.com> wrote:
> WOW!
> The syntax looks very similar to wordperfect on DOS,

Actually, Markup syntax doesn't look like "Reveal Codes" at all. [PS-A]

> which was crushed by windows 3.1 and MS wordpad and MS office.

Actually, no, that's not the story at all, Microsoft was _late_.
I.e., Microsoft used bundling, not better (much less not earlier)
products to "win". [PS-B]

> I remember when the best way to create documents 25+ years ago was
> Tex and LaTex.

Guess what?  Most standards today still have TeX in mind.  ;)

E.g., W3C MathML was heavily designed with 1:1 TeX conversion mind mind.

MathML It's not only in the OASIS OpenOffice XML and, subsequent, ISO
OpenDoc standard, but it's actually what the ISO Office OpenXML 2008
-- yes, Microsoft's own ISO standard for MS Office -- is supposed to
use (but doesn't, until 2013 "Strict" mode, and not well).

The problem with TeX is, like everything else ... integrated content + style.

You want the ability of multiple authors to generate content, but you
want an editor/publisher to actually apply the "style" required.  In
fact, you want multiple editors/publishers to be able to use the same
content, over and over.

Reusability of the same content, without having to reformat and expend
the money (which causes billions in waste every year) in "free form
editing" that should not be done by the content generator.

People should generate content, then let an editor/publisher, even if
themselves, to either apply the stylesheets or, in a more free-form
publication, layout the content (and that goes back to frame layout,
[PS-B]).

OASIS DocBook XML has pretty much become defacto standard for this,
somewhat based off of IBM SGML.  Even DocBook started out as a SGML
implementation, until W3C standardized XML and its particulars.  OASIS
standardization was a no-brainer as it became the defacto standards
organization for XML in the industry.

So ... we're left with XML, which is _not_ very human friendly.

Enter Wiki markup, the new approach to markdown (.md) files and the
ultimate implementations of extensions and supersets, including
AsciiDoc, and the off-shoot AsciiDoctor.

AsciiDoc's own took converts its content-only format to many
"publication" types, including the option to load W3C CSS
(Stylesheets).  You can use those directly.

It also converts to DocBook XML 4.5.  If you can generate the latter,
you can apply XLST and other styles and templates.  As I mentioned,
Publican is quickly becoming an open standard set, because of all of
formats it can target.

E.g., if you look at documentation from any Fedora or Red Hat site,
any Red Hat publications, training, etc... and even many conferences
or presentations outside of Red Hat, even more and more formal
ocumentation in distros, you're seeing Publican at work, and it's
consistent, unrelentingly consistent, whether HTML (single or broken
out), HTML w/Reveal.js (HTML-based presentation), ePub, Mobi, PDF,
etc...  Slides.com is designed for Publican too.

This is why most of us create and use "Markdown" (.md) files by
default, and when we need further content control, the AsciiDoc
(.ad/.asciidoc) superset (even the AsciiDoctor super-superset).  We
can convert to anything else ...

Even ODT and DOCX too ... and, wait for it ... TeX.  ;)

> It seems like we are coming to a full circle here.

Some people never left.  ;)

I.e., I've long used LyX as a LaTeX WYSIWYM (what you see is what you
mean) front-end.  I wish I had similarly for DocBook XML (although LyX
has a DocBook XML export, but going X->1 doesn't work well).  At most,
we get "real-time preview" browser plug-ins for Markdown, AsciiDoc,
etc...

> I will def try to attend this Months meet. It has been too long since
> I came to CALUG.



-- bjs

P.S.  <off-topic history / redirect on popular assumptions>

[PS-A] Markup doesn't really look like "Reveal Codes" in WordPerfect.

"Reveal Codes" actually have formatting, in addition to content.  The
classic TeX issue too -- content w/style.

Markup is _only_ content, to _avoid_ having to deal with layout and
formatting, aka "style."

That said ... "Reveal Codes," have always been a mark-up like bonus in
WordPerfect, unlike MS Word or even StarWriter (know today as
Open/LibreWriter), which utterly lack them.  The former is actually a
good thing because it lets one "inspect" the actual "code" that is
rendering.

One of the first things Sun did after it brought StarDivision was take
version 5.2 of StarOffice and convert all those proprietary
attributes/tags into XML tags, fully documented, 10x as much as
Microsoft has ever.  OASIS OpenOffice XML standardization by Sun
wasn't just supported by Sun.  Not only did Corel (WordPerfect)
sponsor it, Boeing -- the #1 commercial producer of technical
documentation in the world -- also did (long story, and yes, 1st-hand
time at Boeing on such implementation of ODF v. MS).

I could go on and on about the _billions_ of dollars in lost
productivity the US experiences each year because of the legacy of the
'70s "Wang Word Processor" approach, which MS Word for DOS adopted,
that really pre-dates GUIs and Desktop Publishing, but we're still
using. [see PS-B]

In any case ...

Markup is markup, whether it's HTML, Wiki-like (such as most Markdowns
like AsciiDoc), etc...  This is how the publication world has always
worked since the '60s, and still does today in the '10s.  ;)

With the world shifting to Extensible Markup Languages (XML), the
world has been longing for a simple, Wiki-like markup.  There are now
many such "Markdown" languages, with lots of variants.  AsciiDoc is
very, popular because it provides a good superset.

And, it's own program converts 1->1 into DocBook XML version 4.5.
Once in DocBook XML, you can apply stylesheets into everything else.


[PS-B]  First, MS Word (for DOS) was "crushed" by the first WYSIWYM on
MS OS/2 and, subsequently, Windows 3.0, Ami (not from Microsoft).

Ami used a frame-layout, which was very Mac-like DTP.

Second, it utterly lit a fire under Microsoft's butt to seriously fund
their Mac and Windows versions of MS Office.  Microsoft was not only
utterly _behind_ Ami, but even WordPerfect 6 was out _before_ some of
Microsoft's 4.x apps, along with 1-2-3 version 4.

But most companies didn't want to pay $300-400/unit for the new
Windows versions.

Case-in-point ...

As Kempin first proved in their Germany unit which went from <10% PC
share to 98% in 1 year, Microsoft bundled MS Windows 3.x and MS Office
4.x for "free" with $25/unit MS-DOS, even paying "rebates" not to ship
DR-DOS, even Ami Pro (after Lotus bought them) and 1-2-3 under
existing license.

I.e., $700 to buy 1-2-3 and WordPerfect, or a brand new, $1,000 PC
with MS Office.  Which would you choose?  Businesses went 90% the
latter.  ;)

Bundling is how Microsoft "won," despite 1-2-3 and WordPerfect winning
a lot of awards, and outselling MS products 2-1 even 3-1 on the retail
shelf.

This is also how nVidia defeated 3dfx too, getting into the PC OEMs
and bundling, even though 3dfx outsold nVidia several times over on
the retail shelf.

The economies-of-scale of the '90s, which is now only dying off in the
'10s.  90% of consumers will just take what their PC OEM and/or
Superstore will sell them.

This is used in all sorts of industries, although it's dying off in
the '10s due to the Internet buyer being the majority.

E.g., the camera industry, where Nikon spends 3x on marketing at Ritz
et al. and sells "crippled" lower-end products to better get people to
invest in their lens system, with Canon and, now that it's entered the
fray (after purchasing Minolta (and their A-mount), Sony.

But it doesn't mean lesser known companies like Pentax didn't invent
the modern Pentaprism camera, let alone cannot build smaller bodies
with a bigger viewfinder aspect and manage to wring out better DXO
scores than Nikon using the same Sony sensors, and win awards for
value, weather sealing and lens build quality and coatings.

I.e., it's all about what you, the consumer, either choose or limit
yourself to be exposed to, which is often driven by marketing,
bundling and what the distributors -- who are influence by money --
are selling to you.

E.g., assuming how MS Office "won," thinking WordPerfect didn't have a
GUI or even OS/2-Windows version at the time of MS Word for Windows,
let alone not knowing the history of Ami which predates _all_ of them,
and is still considered the "superior" and "faster" approach (frame
layout) for GUI than a pre-GUI approach that people still "fight"
every day (again, Wang-based Word Processing from the late '70s).

We are a victim of our own, mass assumptions.

<off-topic/redirect>

--
Bryan J Smith  -  http://www.linkedin.com/in/bjsmith
E-mail:  b.j.smith at ieee.org  or  me at bjsmith.me