XMLizing the Man Pages

I am planning to start a sourceforge project to XMLize all the MAN
Pages content. I am planning to use a XML DB like Xindice (
http://xml.apache.org/xindice/ ) to store all the content. All the MAN
pages content will be converted to DocBook XML 4.1.2 (
http://www.docbook.org/oasis/intro.html ).

Apache Cocoon ( http://cocoon.apache.org/ ) + Tomcat (
http://jakarta.apache.org/ ) will be used for publishing the Man
Pages. And ( http://www.w3.org/MarkUp/Forms/ ) for maintaining the Man
Pages.

I already have the Cocoon + Xindice infrastructure setup at
http://www.xml-dev.com for maintaining FAQs.

People who are fimiliar with DocBook XML will be able to comprehend
why Docbook is a good choice for creating MAN pages. Also XPath
provides a good method of traversing the MAN Pages XML Tree and
linking one another.

I would like to poll the Slashdot readers to see if this worthwhile
project, or is it just a waste of time.<br>n-e-1 interested in helping
with the project?
Saqib Ali
https://gcs.seagate.com/

Saqib Ali <saqib@stonebeat.org> wrote:
> I am planning to start a sourceforge project to XMLize all the MAN
> Pages content. I am planning to use a XML DB like Xindice (
....
> I would like to poll the Slashdot readers to see if this worthwhile
> project, or is it just a waste of time.<br>n-e-1 interested in helping
> with the project?

Why slashdot? Has turned into a bunch of kids and wannabees
in the last years.

I don't see the point of man pages in XML, they work fine as they are.

The only think I'd like to see, someone incorporating the examples
from the annoying info system pages into the man pages.

If you have ever used Tru64 (former Digital UNIX), every man page
contains some example with a short explanation. This is often
very helpful, but the Linux man pages lack this feature, despite
there are sometimes examples in the info system.

--
Michael Heiming

Remove +SIGNS and www. if you expect an answer, sorry for
inconvenience, but I get tons of SPAM

James Vahn <jvahn@short.circuit.com> wrote:
> Michael Heiming wrote:
> > The only think I'd like to see, someone incorporating the examples
> > from the annoying info system pages into the man pages.

> Try "pinfo" sometime. Start with its own info pages:

> ~$ pinfo pinfo

> It's somewhat like using lynx to browse HTML docs.

Thx, had it already installed. However it's not portable, other
*nix, don't have the info system and I'd prefer the examples
in the man pages.

--
Michael Heiming

Remove +SIGNS and www. if you expect an answer, sorry for
inconvenience, but I get tons of SPAM