[lug] Latex and SGML

[Wayde Allen]

On Wed, 15 Sep 1999, geo-lincs wrote:

> I've been looking into XML a bit and am wondering if there is a
> relationship between SGML (of which XML is a subset) and Latex or if
> they are two separate markup languages. Is there a comparison between
> the two or is Latex a subset of SGML or am I way off base? 

I don't really know the history of LaTeX or SGML particularly well, but
would guess that LaTeX is the older of the two.  LaTeX isn't really a
markup language but rather is a more user friendly interface to the TeX
typesetting language.  If you write documents with lots of mathematical
expressions and/or want to collaborate via e-mail LaTeX is the tool to
use.  LaTeX does make use of standard document types to handle the page
layout, but still allows you to tweak the formatting as desired. 

In contrast, SGML is built around the idea of document structure rather
than document layout.  However, I believe the concept of concentrating on
the document content rather than page layout while writing is a common
theme between both systems.

Would a talk on how to use LaTeX be of interest to the group sometime?
Are there any LaTeX/TeX gurus out there?

- Wayde
  (wallen at boulder.nist.gov)