The demo will:
Show how I use ICE to write multipurpose documents.
Show-off ICE's new slide presentation features.
(which I wrote about earlier)
Answer Andrew Treloar's questions.
And any more questions that came up...
ICE is written in Python because:
The Java programmers in our team at USQ were not confident of writing a cross-platform application.
Python ships with OpenOffice.org.
At this stage we use a different Python version, but some ICE code could be used with OOo in future...
Python can be compiled into stand alone executables for Mac OS X and Windows.
Python has all the libraries we need.
I use ICE to look after my stuff (that is back it up, and keep track of document versions).
Which stuff?
This weblog.
A couple of book-proposals.
Admin stuff like tax spreadsheets.
Board documents and meeting packages.
(book and web versions)
Technical reports
Papers like my AusWeb paper
Complete with automated link footnotes
Administrivia like forms
Coming soon – RUBRIC web site.
All the doco for ICE
The ICE web site.
A fair bit of discussion was about how to keep standards high when ICE does not do content validation.
ICE is an enabler not a constrainer.
An XML system with a validating editor did not catch on with USQ lecturers.
A word processor based system seems more likely to succeed, but cannot do strict validation.
Schematron validation could be used to help 'health check' content.
A strict system can be very costly when exceptions are needed.
Quick feedback via automated XHTML formatting teaches people to use styles.
Complete course templates including the all major elements that should be there help most people to do an acceptable job.
USQ still has editorial services available for distance materials.
