Re: [dita] Policy Decision: Loose or Not

[Michael Priestley <mpriestl@ca.ibm.com>]

>I think you're misunderstanding the implications of the content models
>as shipped: they don't say you *must* do (as in "must allow all
topic 
>types to nest"), they say what you *can* do, from the point of
what is 
>allowed *for specializations*.

The nesting of different topic types
is not governed through specialization: you can change nesting rules without
changing specializations.

Michael Priestley
IBM DITA Architect and Classification Schema PDT Lead
mpriestl@ca.ibm.com
http://dita.xml.org/blog/25

"W. Eliot Kimber" <ekimber@innodata-isogen.com>

01/24/2007 03:04 PM

To	<dita@lists.oasis-open.org>
cc
Subject	Re: [dita] Policy Decision: Loose or Not

Michael Priestley wrote:

> If we want to ditch normative nesting for one, we should ditch it
for 
> both. Otherwise I don't see how we can say concept must allow nesting
of 
> task in ditabase.dtd, and that's normative, but it can disallow it
in 
> concept.dtd, and that's not.

I think you're misunderstanding the implications of the content models
as shipped: they don't say you *must* do (as in "must allow all topic
types to nest"), they say what you *can* do, from the point of what
is 
allowed *for specializations*.

That is, the existence of the value for info-types as declared in the 
ditabase.dtd says "it is, as far as the standard is concerned, OK
to 
nest any type within any other type". But it does not say "you
must 
allow any type to nest within any other type".

Note that using ditabase.dtd as my specialization or configuration base,
I can implement exactly the same constraints that the task-specific 
shell DTDs impose.

Or said another way, the purpose of the normative part of the 
specification is to define the *minimal set of required constraints* 
needed to make all possible DITA elements sensible and interchangable.
Anything else we might choose to provide that is more constraining can
only be a non-normative example or opinion about best practice.

Cheers,

E.

-- 
W. Eliot Kimber
Professional Services
Innodata Isogen
8500 N. Mopac, Suite 402
Austin, TX 78759
(214) 954-5198

ekimber@innodata-isogen.com
www.innodata-isogen.com