Re: Specifying location of bibliography in document

[BP Jonsson <bpj-J3H7GcXPSITLoDKTGw+V6w@public.gmane.org>]

Den 2015-09-01 kl. 20:00, skrev Pablo Rodríguez:
> On 09/01/2015 09:18 AM, BP Jonsson wrote:
>> @Pablo In my experience there are people who are comfortable with
>> WYSIWYG and people who are not. The latter grasp markdown immediately,
>> while the former are as annoyed by markup as the latter are by WYSIWYG.
>
> Many thanks for your reply, BP.
>
> My scenario is different: I want a common source to generate ePub and
> PDF files. The source would be common to me and the author of the text.

It is certainly the case for me too, some of the time: documents 
which should work both as PDF and HTML, but I use pandoc also when 
I only target PDF or doc(x)/odt.

>
> In my experience, people understand lighthweight far better than XML markup.

Certainly.  It is far easier to read, and I do think that it is 
easier to grasp the difference between different elements.  In *ML 
all markup looks the same, which doesn't help to see the big picture.

>
> And even ignoring that, if Markdown is lightweight markup, it should
> avoid any XML syntax by definition.

Agreed, but I will rather have generic containers in their present 
form rather than not at all! FWIW I started working on a filter 
which lets you overload link markup for spans.  It looks for 
'links' having an 'url' that is a period followed by ASCII 
letters, digits and underscores likethe current class markup and 
converts that into a span.  You can also specify further 
attributes or raw markup for spans -- including real spans -- with 
a given class, or inject raw markup for any format.
I'm swamped in work ATM but will finish it as and when I'm not.

Den 2015-09-01 kl. 19:55, skrev Pablo Rodríguez:
 > On 08/31/2015 09:29 PM, Daniel Staal wrote:
 >> >--As of August 31, 2015 8:12:10 PM +0200, Pablo Rodríguez is 
alleged to
 >> >have said:
 >> >
 >>> >>On 08/31/2015 10:57 AM, BP Jonsson wrote:
 >>>> >>>While I share your (Pablo's) irritation over the {X,HT}ML 
syntax for
 >>>> >>>divs and spans every bit I think it is important not to 
confuse that
 >>>> >>>issue with the any questions about the uses of divs or 
spans, which are
 >>>> >>>orthogonal.
 >>> >>
 >>> >>Many thanks for your reply, BPJ.
 >>> >>
 >>> >>Sorry, but I gave up trying to explain pandoc (or Markdown) 
to anyone. I
 >>> >>was writing a manual in Spanish, but I’m afraid Markdown is too
 >>> >>complicated to explain to people with no background in text 
tagging.
 >>> >>
 >>> >>Probably I’m wrong in expecting that pandoc could replace word
 >>> >>proccessing programs for average users.
 >> >
 >> >Probably true.  There are Markdown editors that aim for that 
market, but
 >> >pandoc isn't an editor.  It's a converter.  The editors give 
you a nice
 >> >WYSWYG interface, or at least something close, and give easy 
shortcuts to
 >> >common markup.
 > Many thanks for your reply, Daniel.
 >
 > The problem with visual editors is that users many not know 
what they
 > are actually doing.
 >
 > In that case, I think there is no gain in using pandoc.
 >

I think there is. I have converted (no pun intended!) at least one 
of my authors to Markdown/pandoc, and his documents have become 
much easier to work with not only because they're Markdown when I 
get them.
WYSIWYG word processors promote non-semantic markup[^1]). Consider 
how most WP users indicate a heading: they highlight the text of a 
paragraph and make it 18pt bold rather than applying the named 
styles which the WP usually provides.

Even so the XHTML exported by LibreOffice (I won't even consider 
MS products!) is stupid evil and wrong: all styles, both automatic 
and named are converted into so many `<p>` and `<span>` elements 
with CSS styles applied to classes named either automatically 
random, or after the named styles with an absolutely stupid 
conversion scheme where spaces become `_20_` because SPACE is at 
code/char point `\x20`! I've even had to write my own program to 
clean up that mess as automatically as possible[^2].
In a way generic HTML containers (span and div) were a leap 
backwards because they made possible almost entirely unsemantic 
HTML, worse than what we had when people used i and b rather than 
em and strong (that conversion is a no-brainer compared to what I 
need to do with the LO XHTML, which is technically compliant but 
junk all the same!

With Markdown anyone uses semantic markup even if they are not 
aware of doing so, and with Pandoc the markup of the converted 
*ML/*TeX/whatever becomes equally semantic.
Admittedly authors not only make human editors' lives difficult, 
but also possible, but getting people to effortlessly apply 
semantic markup[^3] would make the lives of editors and teachers 
much easier, and save a lot of other resources as well.

Den 2015-09-01 kl. 21:31, skrev Daniel Staal:
 > Well, first off, they aren't really titles. They are *headings.*

I think we have a translation issue here. 'Heading' is derived 
from Latin _titulus_ in Romance languages.

/bpj

[^1]: Somewhere in there there is markup in one form or another, 
nowadays usually XML, which looks absolutely horrible if you 
unpack those masqueraded zip archives and look at it!

[^2]: https://github.com/bpj/change-html-attrs

[^3]: That *could* certainly be done in a 'WYSIWYG' WP if the 
size- and font-changing commands were hidden away three menus deep 
and the toolbars contained buttons for ordinary/strong emphasis, 
major/medium/minor heading, fixed-width, link and nothing more, 
and a carriage return automatically inserting a skip! I've 
actually considered creating a LibreOffice so customized as far as 
possible for distribution to elementary level students. It 
wouldn't surprise me if it already exists!

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