nekokami, that's certainly not an "ad hominem" argument.
it's your opinion, and you've got a right to it, and there are
probably lots of people who agree they dislike my "style"...
sorry about that... :+)
but i'm not sure that my style is _meaningful_ to the topic...
seems to me the ideas stand up on their own, with a logic
that's powerful enough that it transcends their presentation.
but if that's not the case for you, personally, then perhaps
i can point you to some working examples of light markup.
the most well-known systems are "markdown" and "textile".
even minimal research will show you they are used a _lot_,
such as on the most common blog platforms (e.g., wordpress).
plus, of course, wiki markup is also a form of light markup,
so its use -- on wikipedia alone -- means it has a large base.
one of my favorite of the markdown sites is "showdown":
>
http://www.attacklab.net/showdown-gui.html
it's a javascript implementation that works in real-time...
i think that if you explore markdown in showdown a bit,
you will discover that it is an extremely capable system,
one that generates standards-compliant valid xhtml code.
plus, you can drop any .html code into a markdown file
-- markdown passes it through unmodified -- so there is
virtually nothing that you cannot do, which means in turn
that there's no reason to limit its use to "fiction books"...
iight markup is capable of handling the most difficult books
just as easily as epub (with its "islands" approach) can do.
finally, if you'd like some examples of _books_ in _z.m.l._:
>
http://z-m-l.com/go/vl3.pl
click on the underlined link to view the "master" .zml file,
and then click the button to see the .html that's generated.
let me know if you have any negative feedback on those...
***
in closing, i've been an advocate of light markup for years.
i've done a lot of research on it, and i _know_ that it works.
i've also seen a remarkable uptake in its acceptance, which
doesn't surprise me, because no one likes complex markup.
i predict that within 5 years, browsers will be programmed
to display light-markup files _natively_, so we won't even
be required to convert our light-markup files into (x)html...
the publishing houses have a vested interest in heavy markup
since they want to raise the cost-of-entry as high as possible.
but ordinary people want to lower the cost of self-publishing,
as demonstrated by the embrace of simple blogging software.
the light markup revolution is clear, and gains strength daily.
so if you discount the message because of the messenger
(which is a different kind of rhetorical error), you will be
missing an important message. the revolution won't care
-- it'll go on -- but you will not want to be left far behind...
-bowerbird