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OASIS Docbook SGML/XML is a great format. I’m using it to do some write-up work on the server (software-side) I was building a while back.
LaTeX is also great for many things (although I am seeing that small, one-off projects are complex and simple in all the wrong places for LaTeX to gain the advantage). I created an award application in LaTeX a while back that looked simply beautiful: perfect typesetting, perfect margins, nice intercharacter spacing even on a full justify, clear graphics.
DocBook certainly isn’t a typesetting tool (at least natively, it will export to TeX), but it’s great for busting things up into chapters and putting them on the web (a la Linux Documentation Project and the Gentoo handbook).
What really amazes me is that the Windows world pulls up Word for dang near everything. I’ve seen entire books, order forms, and presentations kludged into a .doc file. In the Linux world (at least among the folks who know enough to realize that Linus Torvalds didn’t write GNOME and KDE), I perceive a general reluctance to use word processors for everything. In fact, the only time a LaTeX/DocBook/Text Editor person would use a word processor would be if WYSIWYG and extensive visual formatting are both necessary.
I think it comes from the Windows world’s general reluctance to learn programming languages. Because, as much as I argue it is only barely a programming language, HTML looks a heck of a lot like a programming language to the uninitiated. It’s actually more like “Reveal Codes” in Word Perfect, but that’s not a battle I can win.
XML certainly isn’t a programming language in my opinion (as it doesn’t give the computer any instructions about anything…XML parsers contain all the “programming” information), but I really doubt most people would be willing to learn DocBook for any reason. The sad thing is, DocBook would be perfect for a lab report if professors would agree to accept it.
Anyway… Food for thought.