🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <23367C@erik.naggum.no> Erik Naggum <SGML@ifi.uio.no> writes:
>|   Practical SGML ($45)
>
>Recommended.  This book has a slight bias towards problems with SGML in
>practice, but is also well suited for people with some programming
>background.  The two-dimensional explanations of the syntax is valuable
>and is consistently used throughout the book.  I wouldn't recommend it
>for complete beginners, though.  SGML is a fairly advanced language, and
>you have to have some idea of what syntax and computer languages are
>about before you get the most out of this book.
>
>|   SGML author's guide (or similar, white) $33
>
>Not recommended.  It confuses several issues, and is very far from "an
>author's guide".

Strange. I read "Practical SGML" after "an author's guide" and kept
thinking "Is he going to mention LINKs, SGML declaration, data tags etc."
(answer usually "no") and "this is explained rather confusingly". It did
offer some perspectives on CALS & EDI etc., and listed a few products
(probably out of date by now) but it is rather sketchy. It is unfair, but
having once had to deal with large amounts of Eric's Rexx code, I was
perhaps overly conscious of a lack of rigour in his book. I certainly
wouldn't recommend it as a first book, and it's probably unnecessary
altogether if one has read lots of <TAG>s (which I _still_ haven't got
hold of...)