Re: DOCBOOK-APPS: jadetex formatting problems

["Sebastian Rahtz" <sebastian dot rahtz at computing-services dot oxford dot ac dot uk>]

camille@mandrakesoft.com writes:

 > I have been asking for months about the following problems to Sebastian
 > Rahtz, but I had no answer from him. 

unfair. I have answered some of them.

 > He must be very busy.
I am; more importantly, I do not really support jadetex (see below)

 > I enclose an archive containing all files that leads to an ugly dvi
 > output.
more comments in a separate message

 > Do you all experiment the same problems with all your documents? How do
 > you cope with it?

you are dealing here with three separately maintained bits of
software, each with its own bugs:

 a) jade/openjade. pretty good, but not perfect. and certainly the TeX 
     backend needs some changes to get the right result
 b) Norm's stylesheets. brilliant work, but Norm would, I am sure,
     agree that there are plenty of problem areas (especially as
     people switch to new release of docbook DTD)
 c) the jadetex macros. the flakiest part of it. they are not bad,
     but they have bugs and intractable problems.

Given this, what happens is that people regard it all as  single
black box (and thats how it is packaged by Linux types), and so come
with problems which could relate to any of the above. Then they get
frustrated because everyone seems to pass the buck.

Speaking for myself, re Jadetex:

 * I always said it was an experiment, to see whether TeX could do the 
   job. The conclusion must be that, by this route, it cannot. Hard,
   but true. It needs a radical shakeup and rethinking. Sadly, few
   people are capable of doing this, understanding both DSSSL and
   TeX. Matthias Clasen could do it, probably, or David Carlisle, but 
   they have other fish to fry.

 * I am sorry, but I do not have the energy or inclination to support
   the black box. I do not use Docbook, I do not use DSSSL, and it has 
   been over a  year since I even did SGML. I *do* offer some support
   for jadetex, but only out of a sense of historical guilt.

My conclusion, so far as using TeX as the print engine for a
Docbook-based print system, is that you have 3 choices

 1. live with the current system, and work around it, as Jorge describes
 2. write a new TeX backend for Jade
 3. write a new set of stylesheets which generate real LaTeX from Docbook.

I suspect that option 3. is what would make most people happy, and
give the best results in the short term :-}  

Sebastian