🚀 go-pugleaf

The successful, reasonable SGML implementations that I have heard of being
fielded in a wide area effort are those that force some rigor upon the
user.  E.g. "you must use this TeX macro package", and then have the
publisher build a TeX->SGML converter for that macro package.

It is not wonderful to talk about portability and then see that it only
works well within a very tight set of design constraints.  But I think
that's where you end up in the real world.

Looking ahead just a notch, perhaps a laudable goal is portability of
macro packages / style sheets / design guidelines across editors.  If you
(as a publisher) could say with confidence that articles would be
acceptable from authors using
 * a particular TeX macro package *or*
 * a particular troff macro package and layout constraints *or*
 * a particular SGML DTD as supplied *or*
 * a particular Microsloth Word style sheet *or*
 * a particular Word Perfect, Frame, Interleaf etc. etc.
and know that they would all be faithfully processed into SGML with the
approved tag set and formatting, I think you would have a winner.  Doubly
so when the same document has the same look and feel in each of these editors.

SGML can be tricked, coerced, badgered etc into doing all sorts of things.
That does not make it a good idea to seek out and wallow in the more
obscure parts of the standard.

  Edward Vielmetti, vice president for research, Msen Inc. emv@Msen.com
        Msen Inc., 628 Brooks, Ann Arbor MI  48103 +1 313 998 4562