🚀 go-pugleaf

I agree with Erik Naggum that Charles Goldfarb's book "The SGML Handbook"
is the best thing that happened to SGML (and it *contains* the Standard!!).
And I am very happy to hear that Erik is working on a simpler presentation
for people starting out with SGML.

In the meantime, the following book is (IHMO) an excellent introduction,
and much more "accessible" than Martin Bryan's book (though we owe Martin
a debt for being "the first with the mostest"!):

	Van Herwijnen, Eric.
	Practical SGML.  307pp.
	Kluwer Academic Publishers (1990).
	ISBN 0-7923-0635-X

Another book worth mentioning is an ISO document:

	Berglund, Anders (Editor). 
	Information processing -- SGML support
	facilities -- Techniques for using SGML.  124pp.
	ISO/IEC/TR 9573: 1988(E).
	[ISO publications don't seem to have ISBNs -- are they not books?]

Charles' comment (in the Handbook) about this book is as follows:

	Anders Berglund has edited a technical report, with
	contributions from himself and other users and developers of
	SGML applications.  The report includes techniques and examples
	for both publishing and office documents, mathematical formulas,
	complex tables, graphics, and spreadsheets.  There is a special
	emphasis on the problems of multilingual documents and linguistic
	scholarship, with examples ranging from intermixed Kanji and
	English to Scandinavian Runes.

I can add that Anders was an active member of the ISO SGML Working
Group during the development of SGML, and that this book was improved
greatly by its submission to both the Working Group and to the various
national "member bodies" for criticism.  Thus it combines a lot of the
experience of those most closely involved in the development of the ISO
SGML Standard.

Anders, by the way, is in charge of the computerized production of
all ISO documents in Geneva and was the person responsible for the
conversion of the ISO's own book-production methods to SGML!

This book is *not* a true introduction to SGML, but it is full of
interesting approaches to the application of SGML for those who are
committed to using it.

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David Slocombe				(416) 963-8337
Vice-President, Research & Development  (800) 387-2777 (from U.S. only)
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