The purpose of this project is to create a documentation and
typesetting system written in Common Lisp.

This project is NOT the n:th attempt to extract documentation strings
from Common Lisp source code and turn it into HTML or some other
format.  Instead, it is an attempt to design a system that can replace
TeX/LaTeX, DocBook, Texinfo, and similar systems.  

At the moment, we are just writing a requirements specification.
Hopefully, the requirements specification will lead to a design
specification and ultimately to an implementation.

Although it is too early to think about the design, we already have
some ideas:

  * We think that it is the wrong approach to start by specifying a
    surface syntax for text markup.  The reason we think it is wrong
    is that many people have strong preferences about this aspect of a
    documentation system, even though it is an accidental aspect
    rather than an essential aspect.

  * We also think it is the wrong approach to start by specifying an
    interactive editor for the system.  Again, people have very strong
    feelings about how it should be done. 

We think that the solution to these problems is to specify the system
as a graph of Common Lisp objects.  Such a design would allow multiple
formats for surface syntax.  Translators between the graph
representation and surface syntax could then be provided, allowing a
user to choose his or her preferred surface syntax.  This design would
also allow for different interactive editors and viewers, using either
a web browser or some other GUI system for the user interaction.