Re: [docbook-apps] RE: DocBook topic element]

[Mike Maxwell <maxwell@umiacs.umd.edu>]

Denis Bradford wrote:
> As a writer who uses both every day, I would look elsewhere for relative
> strengths and weaknesses. For example, in DITA's favor I might point out
> its small tag set...
> 
> IMO, DocBook's "swiss army knife" flexibility is a Good Thing in a
> modular XML publishing system. From this standpoint, adding a
> well-considered topic model is one more useful refinement to DocBook.

When a Swiss Army Knife has too many tools, it's hard to find the right 
one; all the blades you don't want get in the way.

I know there's work going on on a simplified DocBook.  Has any thought 
been given to modularizing DB, in the sense of having a core (which 
would probably be the simplified DB) and modules (for software/ hardware 
documentation, maybe this topic model, and who knows what else--maybe 
linguistics and computational linguistics (my thing), chemistry,...)? 
It would be similar to the idea of having programming libraries (the 
Python model), rather than cramming everything into the main language 
(the Common Lisp/ Ada model).

(Yes, I do know that I can omit elements.  We do that--lots of it.)
-- 
    Mike Maxwell
    What good is a universe without somebody around to look at it?
    --Robert Dicke, Princeton physicist