Cookbook: Docbook vs. LaTeX

[Susan Stewart]

At today's Edubuntu Cookbook meeting, those in attendance voted to use
Subversion (svn) to manage Cookbook, as opposed to the wiki as done in
the past.  We still need to decide what file format to use.  The two
contenders right now are LaTeX and Docbook.  Here's hoping we can get
the debate done before Thursday's meeting.

Both docbook and LaTeX are easily styled, and both are widely used.

I lean toward LaTeX for the following reasons:

Whether we self-publish or go with a traditional publisher, we want to
have a print copy of the cookbook.  In my limited experience, I've never
run into a publisher that will take a manuscript in docbook form, but I
know of several that work in TeX and/or LaTeX.  If we go with docbook,
and the publisher needs LaTeX, someone has to do the work of converting
the docbook to LaTeX and re-proofing to make sure nothing weird
happened.  I'd rather devote our energy to content.

Lyx is a very newbie-friendly WYSIWYG editor for LaTeX.  I'm not aware
of something similar for docbook (if there is, this point is moot, so
please let me know).  Documentation is one of the places where
non-sysadmin types get to contribute back to the community, and we need
it to stay that way.  I'm afraid we may alienate a whole category of
potential documenters if we ask everyone to do markup by hand (docbook
or any other kind).

More people at the last cookbook meeting stated they had experience with
LaTeX than with docbook.

That said, I'm told that the ubuntu documenters use docbook across the
board.  That's both a plus in itself (as consistency is good) and
something that suggests there may be benefits to docbook I'm not aware
of.  (docbook proponents, this is your cue)

Okay, folks, have at it.  Debate time! :D

Susan Stewart (HedgeMage)