Re: [docbook] Add topic element to DocBook?

[Jirka Kosek <jirka@kosek.cz>]

Elliotte Harold wrote:

> support both in the same application. We'd have the Edsel problem: 
> trying to be all things to all people and ending up being nothing to no 
> one. DocBook's book-based design does not fit well with this. If that's 
> what you need, there's DITA. We do not need one vocabulary to rule them 
> all.

Do you really think that adding one new topic element which can be used 
as an alternative to book/chapter/section with more restricted content 
model will have any negative impact on DocBook usability for creating 
book oriented content?

Currently DocBook is usually used for creating books and articles. 
Differences in content models of book and article are comparable to 
differences between book and topic or article and topic. So I don't see 
any problem here. The 99% of markup will be the same for book-based and 
topic-based content. Moreover there is already DocBook derived document 
type called Website which is in fact almost identical to proposed topic 
approach, except that you use <webpage> element instead of <topic>.

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