[comp.text] SGML Spec

etan@sunEc.tellabs.com (Nate Stelton) (07/13/90)

I have a twofold request to comp.text readers with SGML experience:

1.  Could someone point me to a document that defines what SGML is and how to
    use it?

2.  Could someone post a real brief summary of the SGML spec--perhaps just a
    list of the tags?

I know nothing about SGML, but am interested in using it for the sake of
employing a more universal concept of tagging.  We currently use both Eroff
and FrameMaker.  Do either of these packages lend themselve well to SGML?

etan

enag@ifi.uio.no (Erik Naggum) (07/13/90)

Etan,

SGML is not a "set of tags".  It's a language for defining the inter-
relationship between abstract or general markup units, with the aid of
tags.  (An SGML application would have a set of tags, though.)  You
define a Document Type Definition by specifying the interrelation-
ships, and then use the tags after specifying that you're going to use
that particular DTD.  Some DTD's are standardized, such as ODL (Office
Document Language with the Office Document Architecture) and a set of
tags "comes with" 8879.  The Technical Report is well worth reading,
and gives additional input on choice of tags, etc.

I recommend getting the following for starters, if you're seriously
interested:

	ISO 8879: Standard Generalized Markup Language
	ISO TR 9573: Techniques for using SGML

	Martin Bryan: "SGML: An Author's Guide", Addison-Wesley
	ISBN 0-201-17535-5.  (Martin Bryan works for Quorum Technical
	Services, Ltd, Gloucestershire, as Software Documentation
	Manager according to one of the example letters in the book,
	and the book is pretty good, although it tries to be a little
	too complete, and suffers from brevity.  I recommend reading
	it twice to get the jargon right.)

	Joan M Smith, Robert Stutely: "SGML: the user's guide to ISO
	8879", Ellis Horwood Limited (in the UK) ISBN 0-7458-0221-4,
	John Wiley & Sons (the world in general) ISBN 0-470-21226-1.
	(Dedicated "To Charles, but for whom this book would have been
	unnecessary."  A perfect in-joke to those who can lay hands on
	the commentaries to the draft versions.  Charles (whose last
	name I have forgotten) chaired the ISO committee which wrote
	the standard, and Joan Smith wanted the information in this
	book to be part of the standard, which is a most sensible
	demand.  The book is a must, and covers both the first version
	of 8879 and Amendment 1.  Joan Smith is an independent consul-
	tant and President of the SGML User's Group.  Robert Stutely
	is assistant head of technical servies at Her Majesty's
	Stationery Office.)

I hope you won't be overwhelmed by this.  Good luck.

I refuse to say anything about FrameMaker, as it would only start a
flame-fest.

You could probably make an SGML parser which wrote Eroff or troff or
whatever output.  A product called The Publisher from ArborText (I
think) uses TeX as the output language.  Seems like that's a good
choice.
--
[Erik Naggum]