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Re: migrating the NetBSD users guide to the wiki
I am also anti-markdown / anti-wiki format for long texts. Its
formatting techiques are confusing and weak. I spent a long time
generating a ~100 page PDF in markdown using ikiwiki. I had to go
through lots of jumps to get it formatted nicely (to PDF via markdown to
HTML to LaTeX), do indexing and cross-references, literal layouts with
formatting, and the wiki source itself became a mess. It was no longer
very readable as "plain text" for me. (And reading nroff, latex, or
docbook is sometimes easier.)
I have worked with thousands of printed pages based on LaTeX and Docbook
without using any knowledgeable word processor. It can also be difficult
to read and edit, but for me I much prefer the sanity. I like how I can
identify different things using special tags or syntax, do indexing,
cross-references, and citations (as an example of some things that are
very difficult with markdown and wiki).
While I prefer LaTeX, I do like how docbook catches my mistakes
better. (Someday, I may try to do an entire book using nroff and some
macro.)
That said since I haven't been participating in the users guide (and
pkgsrc guide lately), my vote would be for the largest contributors to
make their decisions.
To change the topic a little, it would be awesome if we had some
definite goal for the NetBSD Guide and drive it there, like a real book
printing. If printed book was a real goal, then maybe the question of
this thread would be answered.
Thank you so much for your documentation clean ups!
echo V nz ybbxvat sbe grpu erivrj bs n csFrafr obbx. | \
tr "VFnoprstuvxyzabcefgij" "ISabcefghiklmnoprstvw"
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