[Gllug] LinuxDoc / DocBook Documentation Writting

[Nix]

On Tue, 12 Sep 2006, Peter Childs murmured woefully:
> The Only editor for LinuxDoc or DocBook is Vi or Emacs so you have to
> try and remember the nessessary structure and its up to you to check
> your spelling and grammer many features that are built in to the likes
> of OpenOffice and Word which work well with WYSIWYG languages.

Actually, flyspell-mode in (X)Emacs will fix the realtime spellchecking
and nothing I've seen can beat psgml-mode for editing anything
DTD-driven: it reads the DTD so you don't have to :)

As for grammar checking, don't bother: no grammar checker out there is
worth anything.

e.g. try feeding in the grossly incorrect sentence

  She's going to London and talk on global warming

and Word at least won't spot it (nor will anything else that I know of:
I just tried OOo, and it didn't). (Thanks to Arnold Zwicky at Language
Log for that one). (I mean, note the irregularity here: `she's going to
talk on global warming and London' is fine, as is `she's going to London
and Edinburgh' and `she's going to talk on global warming and flood
defence'.)

Plus most grammar checkers warn (wrongly) about vast numbers of entirely
legitimate constructions. Using them cripples your use of the language
for no worthwhile return. Spelling is one thing: people often make
spelling errors, particularly in constructs which have no effect on
pronunciation, like apostrophes. But it is *vanishingly* rare in my
experience for people to make significant numbers of grammatical errors
when writing: the most I've ever seen is the occasional bit of number or
case confusion in long and involved sentences, and the occasional misuse
of idiom (which normally confuses grammar checkers too).

Humans, any humans, are far better at grammar than any computer built to
date. Don't fob this job off on machines. They can't do it.

And if you have a really document to work on, let someone else proofread
it. Let *them* be your grammar checker. (That last sentence would be
flagged as grammatically incorrect by some idiot prescriptivists and
even more idiot grammar checkers: singular `they', you see.)


(I know there are language geeks on this list --- far more knowledgeable
language geeks than I: I expect they agree but I'd not venture to assume
that.)

-- 
`In typical emacs fashion, it is both absurdly ornate and
 still not really what one wanted.' --- jdev
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