Re: [docbook] Ruminations on the future of DocBook

[Dave Pawson <dpawson@nildram.co.uk>]

At 13:12 30/05/2003 -0500, Jeff Biss wrote:
>Adam,
>
>Conceptually in programming there is the main program (routine) and 
>smaller modules that are called from the main program (subroutine). 
>Therefore why couldn't the DocBook DTD have been simplified through the 
>use of <subroutine role=method> for java and <subroutine role =function> 
>for C? There may be a lot to be gained from using element names that 
>define what something is generically (subroutine) rather than what it is 
>called specifically in any given instance (function).
>
>Would namespace allow this type of generalization? I have an idea of what 
>a namespace but not that precise.

Another perspective on this is that they are (programming language 
specific) extension elements?
Which could be viewed as being out of scope of the base layer.
   Perhaps markup could be 'really semantic' if each language added its own 
extensions and processing
   (or mapping to common styling).
   My question then is, would that level of semantic markup be valuable in 
usage?

I have this nasty suspicion that many... some... a few
  users, chose docbook because:
   1. Its XML (durable)
    2. Produces HTML and print.
and the elements used are to [some... large..] extent chosen based on the 
output?
I could be wrong.


regards daveP.