Re: use of a single file for the "programming with gtkmm" book

[lecas malecas <darkiiiiii gmail com>]

On Mon, Oct 31, 2011 at 7:55 AM, Murray Cumming <murrayc murrayc com> wrote:
> On Sun, 2011-10-30 at 21:02 +0000, lecas malecas wrote:
>> Hi,
>> currently the gtkmm book uses docbook, and has all content in a single
>> file (root/docs/tutorial/C/gtkmm-tutorial-in.xml), which makes it
>> really hard to edit it.
>
> Having it in a single file avoids having to duplicate (or complicatedly
> include) some of the entity reference variables such as the gtkmm
> version number.
>

You mean those few lines at the top of the file?

>> What I'm wondering, is why isn't each chapter in its own file, it
>> would facilitate changes.
>
> I don't think it's so hard.
>

Its a 9400 lines file, with just a few lines of comments.

When you write source code, you don't bundle everything into the same
file right? You separate where it makes sense. Here is the same.

>> Also, why is docbook used instead of plain html?
>> Html is more known, so it would be easier to edit as-well.
>
> DocBook is far more expressive than HTML and allows
> - translation to other languages.
> - conversion to other formats, such as integration with DevHelp.
> and it's just a standard for documentation.
>
Its more expressive but because of that, more complicated, but ok,
maybe its a better alternative.

> --
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