DOCBOOK: Technical DTDs vs. non-technical

[Alvaro Siman <alsiman@sppe.com>]

Terry,

Thanks for the input.  Yes, I have visited and looked around at DocBook.

But the assumption DocBook is making is one I would like to avoid:

DocBook was "primarily written for books about computer software and
hardware". "Because its main structures correspond to the general notion of
what constitutes a "book,", it is assumed that it automatically addresses
the needs of Literature in general.

However, this may not be true about 'humanistic' subject matter.  Assuming
that "literature" covers the whole spectrum of the written word, therefore
it automatically covers any of its subsets is not exactly correct.  If that
were so, there wouldn't be a specific need for MathML, or LegalML, or any
other of the XML specializations.

In the same way that there is a set of concerns and a specific lingo for
'scientific' needs, there is also one for 'humanistic' topics.

I appreciate the feedback,

Alvaro Siman

-----Original Message-----
From: Terry Allen [mailto:tallen@sonic.net]
Sent: Thursday, June 22, 2000 5:41 PM
To: docbook@lists.oasis-open.org
Subject: Re: DOCBOOK: Literary DTDs

>Is anyone out there working on an XML DTD designed for literary use??  

Docbook is suitable for such use.  It has been used for scholarly books
and dissertations.  Have you bothered to look at it?