You know what, while you're at it, I might as well bring it up. How about XML?
I haven't really tried writing large pieces of text in it but I am already seriously considering. All other alternatives are too complicated and have a learning curve that gets in the way of writing itself. With XML, I'd be able to define my own tags and run them by a parser later on to auto-generate indexable footnotes, and create my own ways of structuring text besides the usual ones (chapters, sections, etcetera). Has anyone tried this approach?
Professional tech writer here: We use GitHub and a tool called OxygenXML to write docs-as-code in an XML DTD called "DITA". It's a hefty IBM invention from the early aughts, but it covers every use case I've thrown at it, from small documentation sets to multi-thousand-page monsters. Supports PDF, HTML, Word, and many other output types.
DITA's so great at everything _except contributions from non-tech writers_ that half of my career has involved migrating tech writing stacks that use it to Markdown/SSGs in git repos.
DITA's benefits require a certain scale that most tech companies never achieve. And the Open Toolkit is a nightmare piece of software.
Agreed, and we use Markdown where we can. But inevitably some product manager comes along and demands tables inside tables or embedded reuse of content... and it's back to DITA.
OxygenXML makes the OT much more manageable. I haven't had to touch an OT XSL transform in a few years now. Worth every penny.
Yeah last time I touched it was during an internship 15 years ago, the few memories I recall were not enjoyment at all (however I was using LaTeX everywhere at the time).
Writing documentation as XML is powerful but not enjoyable at all I guess
I have been thinking about this seriously myself. Not with a specific existing schema like DocBook, but with a custom schema (defined by me) that I then compile to standard schemas, like DocBook or HTML.
This seems extensible to the degree that I want (i.e. semantically rich enough that you can conceivably hang any application from it). But I just can't bring myself to write in XML syntax, especially for maths.
Thanks for the feedback. Yep - we've yet to update the website. It's a waitlist, we're not launched yet. Absolutely fair criticism. It'll be updated in the next few weeks!
I haven't really tried writing large pieces of text in it but I am already seriously considering. All other alternatives are too complicated and have a learning curve that gets in the way of writing itself. With XML, I'd be able to define my own tags and run them by a parser later on to auto-generate indexable footnotes, and create my own ways of structuring text besides the usual ones (chapters, sections, etcetera). Has anyone tried this approach?