From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Path: news.gmane.org!not-for-mail From: Vaidheeswaran C Newsgroups: gmane.emacs.help Subject: Re: Emacs Book Vs Emacs Manuals Date: Sat, 16 May 2015 11:20:09 +0530 Message-ID: References: <87fv77barj.fsf@gnu.org> <87zj5fgpd8.fsf@newcastle.ac.uk> <83h9rnp0yy.fsf@gnu.org> <83zj5enihg.fsf@gnu.org> <554EFEFD.6090908@gmail.com> <833834o4rv.fsf@gnu.org> <834mnjm73d.fsf@gnu.org> Reply-To: vaidheeswaran.chinnaraju@gmail.com NNTP-Posting-Host: plane.gmane.org Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=windows-1252 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit X-Trace: ger.gmane.org 1431755478 1992 80.91.229.3 (16 May 2015 05:51:18 GMT) X-Complaints-To: usenet@ger.gmane.org NNTP-Posting-Date: Sat, 16 May 2015 05:51:18 +0000 (UTC) To: help-gnu-emacs@gnu.org Original-X-From: help-gnu-emacs-bounces+geh-help-gnu-emacs=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Sat May 16 07:51:04 2015 Return-path: Envelope-to: geh-help-gnu-emacs@m.gmane.org Original-Received: from lists.gnu.org ([208.118.235.17]) by plane.gmane.org with esmtp (Exim 4.69) (envelope-from ) id 1YtV03-00033F-8C for geh-help-gnu-emacs@m.gmane.org; Sat, 16 May 2015 07:51:03 +0200 Original-Received: from localhost ([::1]:33710 helo=lists.gnu.org) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1YtV02-0001sN-Gj for geh-help-gnu-emacs@m.gmane.org; Sat, 16 May 2015 01:51:02 -0400 Original-Received: from eggs.gnu.org ([2001:4830:134:3::10]:52841) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1YtUzp-0001s6-UJ for help-gnu-emacs@gnu.org; Sat, 16 May 2015 01:50:51 -0400 Original-Received: from Debian-exim by eggs.gnu.org with spam-scanned (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1YtUzm-000503-Mi for help-gnu-emacs@gnu.org; Sat, 16 May 2015 01:50:49 -0400 Original-Received: from plane.gmane.org ([80.91.229.3]:52164) by eggs.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1YtUzm-0004zv-Bm for help-gnu-emacs@gnu.org; Sat, 16 May 2015 01:50:46 -0400 Original-Received: from list by plane.gmane.org with local (Exim 4.69) (envelope-from ) id 1YtUzk-0002uW-Fz for help-gnu-emacs@gnu.org; Sat, 16 May 2015 07:50:45 +0200 Original-Received: from 106.216.158.238 ([106.216.158.238]) by main.gmane.org with esmtp (Gmexim 0.1 (Debian)) id 1AlnuQ-0007hv-00 for ; Sat, 16 May 2015 07:50:44 +0200 Original-Received: from vaidheeswaran.chinnaraju by 106.216.158.238 with local (Gmexim 0.1 (Debian)) id 1AlnuQ-0007hv-00 for ; Sat, 16 May 2015 07:50:44 +0200 X-Injected-Via-Gmane: http://gmane.org/ Original-Lines: 92 Original-X-Complaints-To: usenet@ger.gmane.org X-Gmane-NNTP-Posting-Host: 106.216.158.238 User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (X11; Linux i686; rv:31.0) Gecko/20100101 Icedove/31.3.0 In-Reply-To: <834mnjm73d.fsf@gnu.org> X-detected-operating-system: by eggs.gnu.org: Genre and OS details not recognized. X-Received-From: 80.91.229.3 X-BeenThere: help-gnu-emacs@gnu.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.14 Precedence: list List-Id: Users list for the GNU Emacs text editor List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , Errors-To: help-gnu-emacs-bounces+geh-help-gnu-emacs=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Original-Sender: help-gnu-emacs-bounces+geh-help-gnu-emacs=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Xref: news.gmane.org gmane.emacs.help:104462 Archived-At: On Monday 11 May 2015 09:36 PM, Eli Zaretskii wrote: >> From: Vaidheeswaran C >> Date: Mon, 11 May 2015 11:00:09 +0530 >> >>>> What I call as "A Book", may not in actuality be a book as it is >>>> conventionally understood and consumed. >>> >>> Then what is it? And why would people want to use it, instead of >>> googling? >>> >>> Without some "glue", there's no added value to a book that just brings >>> together unsorted tops that are already available on the Web. >> >> You can help me define the "glue". > > It's that stuff that guides the reader from one feature to another, > and generally allows the reader to make sense out of a huge pile of > loosely related features. > > E.g., when you describe commands that act on buffers, they should be > described in some methodical manner, and the order should make some > sense, and facilitate understanding and memorizing them. DITA and Robert E Horn's work on Structured Writing could __inform__ our efforts. See below for more details. Here is a quick summary of DITA (from Wikipedia page). | DITA content is created as topics. Typically, each topic covers a | specific subject with a singular intent, for example, a conceptual | topic that provides an overview, or a procedural topic that explains | how to accomplish a task. For the sake of discussion, let us pretend that my proposed "Book" will be task-oriented and include guidelines (platform-specific or locale-specific). Each task-oriented node will cross-reference some or more of standard Info nodes. (The cross-reference can be to a link to a concept or a node in the glossary). ---------------------------------------------------------------- On the topic of "glues", | See http://www.scriptorium.com/2009/12/assessing-dita-as-a-foundation-for-xml-implementation/ | The topic-oriented architecture requires that authors create | modular, self-contained information. For content creators who are | accustomed to working on cohesive books, this can be rather a | difficult transition. | One topic (sorry!) of heated discussion is the issue of “glue text,” | the content that provides coherent transitions from one topic to | another. Some argue that glue text is unnecessary and that | transitions are overrated; at the other extreme is the opinion that | modules without transitions are unusable. If you belong to the | latter group, keep in mind that implementing transitional text in | DITA is quite difficult. Transition text that makes sense in one | context might not be relevant in another. ---------------------------------------------------------------- | From http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Darwin_Information_Typing_Architecture | | Information typing | | DITA includes three specialized topic types: Task, Concept, and | Reference. Each of these three topic types is a specialization of a | generic Topic type, which contains a title element, a prolog element | for metadata, and a body element. The body element contains | paragraph, table, and list elements, similar to HTML. | | - A (General) Task topic is intended for a procedure that describes | how to accomplish a task. A Task topic lists a series of steps | that users follow to produce an intended outcome. The steps are | contained in a taskbody element, which is a specialization of the | generic body element. The steps element is a specialization of an | ordered list element. | | - Concept information is more objective, containing definitions, | rules, and guidelines. | | - A Reference topic is for topics that describe command syntax, | programming instructions, and other reference material, and usually | contains detailed, factual material. ---------------------------------------------------------------- Works of Robert E. Horn may be of some interest to current discussion. (See http://www.amazon.com/Robert-E.-Horn/e/B000APJGAU). If any of you is familiar with the works, please check-in ...