From: clarke@mahakala.corp.sgi.com (David Clarke)
Newsgroups: comp.text.frame
Subject: Re: Troff vs FrameMaker Productivity
Date: 23 Jul 92 23:05:27 GMT
Reply-To: clarke@mahakala.corp.sgi.com (David Clarke)
Organization: Silicon Graphics, Inc., Mountain View, CA, USA

>Actually, I think the debate should be divorced from troff, which
>(unless used with an appropriate, extensive macro package, like AT+T
>used) cannot be considered a markup language.
>
>The debate should center on WYSIWYG vs. markup language for
>documentation, which is what the AT+T source I quoted was talking
>about.  Form versus content: When should the writer be concerned with
>the format of the document versus getting words down on paper (or in
>a file).

Isn't this really two separate distinctions?  First, there is the  issue of implicit vs 
explicit structure in a document.  Frame (in its current incarnation) structures 
documents as a flow, so there is no explicit heirarchy of structure.  True markup 
such as SGML does structure documents heirarchically.  The latter format 
certainly contains more immediately accessible information about a document's 
structure (as opposed to format) than the former.

Secondly, there is the matter of document creation. I don't think anyone would 
argue that the writer should spend a great deal of time on the intricacies of 
formatting.  Ideally, it should be automatically applied as a result of proper 
tagging/markup.  That's what a good template or stylesheet is for.  However, 
good writing is much more that simply "getting words down on paper."  It's 
getting those words down in a coherent, logical manner.  For most of the writers 
I work with, it's seems to be much easier to do this while working in a formatted 
display as opposed to working directly in troff or SGML or any other ASCII 
formatting/markup language.  The formatted display provides a visual 
expression of document structure that's much easier to grasp at a glance.

>The AT+T study was one data point that said, for the purposes of
>producing documentation, that a markup languate is more productive.
>Frame templates, versus, for instance, LaTeX styles (which admittedly
>are not pure markup), or an SGML based system (which is perhaps another
>red flag), would be a more appropriate test.

Again, I think we're talking about two different things here.  Frame source
is certainly less immediately portable than structured content, but doc
creation is really another matter.  Frame templates are fast and easy to
use, and if I weren't concerned about portability, I'd probably choose them
over a markup system without a WYSIWYG display.  By the same token,
if I had to choose between two structured markup systems, one with a 
WYSIWYG display and the other without, I'd certainly choose the former.

>All I know about the AT+T test is in the source I quoted.  I would
>suspect, though, that whatever WYSIWYG tool they used had templates,
>style sheets, or the equivalent -- most of these tools do.  

If you discover any more information about this, I'd like to see it.  It sounds very 
much like a raw speed test for simple formatting, which in itself is a rather poor 
approximation of the writing process.  I've formatted in troff using macros and in 
Frame using templates and my own experience is that the latter is considerably 
faster and just as flexible with content changes. 

>It seems
>that WYSIWYG gets in the way, though, in addition to missing the extra
>content information captured by using markup.

I don't believe that WYSIWYG gets in the way. For most of the writers I work 
with, WYSIWYG seems to be a productive writing tool.  A Frame paragraph tag 
performs the same function as a troff macro or a SGML tag.  They get this 
functionality by clicking a button, rather that typing ".H1" or "<Heading1>." In 
addition, the writer gets immediate feedback on the structure of their document 
through the WYSIWYG display. 

-----------------
David Clarke
Production Editor
clarke@corp.sgi.com