[diary] Using docbook

The idea of docboook is that you write one source file in sgml or
xml (which is a subset of sgml) and you can process it to get plain
text, html, rtf, or tex output, or put the information in a database,
or any other format that someone can write a program to read the input
and get the output.

This is an attractive idea for people who have to email to
collaborators, maintain a website, print hard copies, and keep track
of where they’ve put the stuff they do. (I’m sure I’d transcribed the
Ravenscroft “Three
Blinde Mice” before Bonnie did it this week, but neither of us
could find it).

However, before last night, I’d tried several times to get the
docbook toolchain to work, and never managed to get both text and PDF
out of the same file (using the test files I got off the web), let
alone have it magically solve my website database maintenance
problems.

Last night, I finally hit on the DocBook Install
mini-HOWTO, and it works!

Of course, the pathname to the DTD file isn’t exactly the same in
Debian as if you install everything from source, but slocate and
updatedb are your friends, and there’s a Makefile template that will
let you find the files once and then let the computer remember where
they are.

I’ll let you know if I manage to get it to clean the house and
roast the Thanksgiving turkey for me.