atw: Re: XML - a requirement for a TechWriter looking forwork?
- From: peterm_5@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx
- To: austechwriter@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Thu, 11 Sep 2008 13:57:40 +0800
Judith:
I repeat: if you use Word 2007, you use XML, just as if you use SVG,
you use SVG.
Geoffrey:
Well now it hangs on what we mean by "requirement".
Consider. Before 1983, a knowledge of Word wasn't a requirement for
tech writing.
In UNIX etc, you could do things in plain text. or .man pages, or
whatever.
And there was Write, and Spellbinder, and WordPerfect etc. etc. etc..
Some would suggest that a knowledge of Word is requirement for most
tech writing work today. At least the ads specify that, so maybe
that's a real requirement? And maybe similar things will happen with
XML.
But you can still be a tech writer without Word. Just not paid all
that often or regularly.
So requirements change and develop.
[And meanwhile, back at the ranch, if you think you can freely use
FrameMaker to do most XML work today, without knowing a jot or two
about XML, I'm sorry, you've either run into miracle territory or you
haven't tried to use it much, at least not the way Adobe and IBM use
it.]
I wouldn't say you have to know about DTDs and schemas in detail, any
more than I'd suggest you need to know how any of the parsers work in
detail, (back to cars and engines!) but if you don't understand the
concepts of tagged text and its implications for context, you can
miss the whole point... either by expecting too much, or not knowing
how you can save time and effort.
Today's Word may well be tomorrow's DITA.
--Peter M
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