Re: FM and Revision Control Systems

[eric.dunn@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx]

Dan, I think you miss the point I tried to make (or I made it poorly). Really, I
phrased it as a question. While I'm in agreement that the ideal solution is a
structured environment, is it really easier to arrive at a structured
environment than the midway approach?

EDDs, DTDs, Read/Write Rules, roundtripping Tables and insets, dealing with
unsupported features and conflicts between the authoring environment, publishing
environment, and the SGML/XML standards. All of these are far from trivial
problems to surmount. To the average shop, I'd suggest that stripping MIF of all
unnecessary data would be far less work and involve far fewer pitfalls than a
direct migration to structured documentation. I'd think of this perhaps as a mid
step towards a structured solution.

Another advantage to this "midstep" is pointed out in your own post. You get to
conserve some of the authoring environments strengths. Text insets, variables,
Xrefs, books, numbering, and all the other FM functions we take for granted can
be kept without trying to figure out what can be supported and what can't in a
structured environment.

Eric L. Dunn



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