[lug] Typesetting Programs

[Rob Nagler]

rm at fabula.de writes:
> way to get convincing typographic output. The problem i see with
> automatic conversion from "pure" semantic markup (ala XML) to
> LaTeX is that there's no way to provide the often needed typographic

I second this.  I use DocBook/XML.  If you write an example in, say,
Perl :-), you can't just include the file, you have to pre-process
it.  So, I invented my own tag, and use a little Perl script to
preprocess to "official" DocBook/XML.

XML (CORBA, etc.) interface standards are often the least common
denominator.  People end up writing extensions (viz. EXSLT or whatever
it's called in sax), because the XML markup designed can't be designed
iteratively and by a standards committee at the same time.

My guess is there will always be a place for XML-like (style sheet)
formatting, and languages like LaTeX (PostScript/PDF) will be there
for problems which can not be standardized in advance.

Rob