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From: dougcc@csv.viccol.edu.au (Douglas Miller)
Newsgroups: comp.text,comp.text.desktop
Subject: Re: Which is better?  Textprocessing langs or DeskTop publishing pgms?
Message-ID: <2017@csv.viccol.edu.au>
Date: 19 Sep 89 22:09:45 GMT
References: <509@mjbtn.MFEE.TN.US> <2650@trantor.harris-atd.com> <2671@trantor.harris-atd.com> <722@idacom.UUCP>
Organization: Computer Services, Victoria College, Melbourne
Lines: 47

In article <722@idacom.UUCP>, danny@idacom.UUCP (Danny Wilson) writes:
> The discussion about Interleaf, Frame and the Publisher are just fine,
> however, I think that a really exceptional publishing package is
> 'DOC' from Context Corp.

> 'Variant' documents are possible which allow, for example, both a
> North American (eg."Plug into a 110V socket") and a European
> (eg. "Plug into the 220V mains") version of the document within
> a single file.

As a TeX apologist, I'm naturally going to point out that I would do it
like this:

   Plug into \ifEuropean a 110V socket \else the 220V mains \fi.

> Change control allows revision control and support for 'variant' 
> documents.  This means that within a single master document 
> can be all versions of a software manual (V1.0, V1.1 etc). 
> With only the 'active' version visible at one time.

Well, my TeX source shows ALL versions SIMULTANEOUSLY, clearly an
improvement over DOC (:-)?).

> For you software guys, it is like the power of
> RCS/SCCS/DSEE-like database fully integrated into your document
> production system.

"Fully integrated" doesn't necessarily sound like a good idea to me. 
Suppose you are developing software and its associated documentation.  You
would have the software in one revision control system and the
documentation in another.

I write my documentation in LaTeX, and because the source is plain ASCII, I
can store it in the same revision control library as my source code (DEC
CMS).  Then I can define classes like V1.0, V1.1 etc that encompass all
relevant files, whether code or documentation.

CMS handles element reservation, variant lines of descent, merging of
variants, element groups, generation classes (e.g. "V1.0"), reference copy
libraries, review markers, element history (modification comments etc.),
and generation archiving.  Does DOC do all or most of this?  If not, you
are getting less than you should have.  If it does, you might be ahead,
unless you also have revision control software for your software code, in
which case you're paying extra for redundant features that fragment your
revision control efforts.

"Different tools for different jobs".