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Subject: Re: [docbook] RE: [docbook-apps] db 5 and Dita anyone?
Hello - Specialization ========== The value of specialization, really is a way to develop more semantic compact xml structure based on your doc needs.. The way DITA does specialization is by putting all elements in the base DTD and the specialization is allowing you to choose a subset of those elements in your DTD .. (They do allow renaming of elements which makes it appear that you can extend the base DTD set, but it really isn't..) The specialization feature is an impressive new concept in that your stylesheets are not based on the element names but off the base classes (much like in object oriented coding).. The stylesheet coding to support this is very messy from my perspective to maintain though. I believe that the docbook customization layer in stylesheets is a better approach.. NOTE: There are 2 competing thoughts in the DITA world on whether specialization is a good thing or not.. Some of them strongly advocate that specialization should be discouraged and is not DITA if you do that.. The one business need that DITA is trying to solve with specialization - based on all my discussions with the DITA experts - is that it allows you to share/distribute your xml content files without having to distribute the stylesheets.. The base stylesheets would be installed on every computer and because your specialzed document is a subset of the base DITA dtd, you are guaranteed at least a default rendering of the document.. I personally, don't believe that most people have that business need to distribute xml without xsl and thus believe that DocBook should resist it in favor of the customization layer!! Conrefs ====== Regarding conrefs - the benefit I see is that it allows you to reuse chunks/topics of content but still give you flexibility to change certain text within.. For e.g. if an installation procedure is the same for 2 routers, then you could use conref to change the router name in that topic.. This is like a TE (text entitiy) feature that was present in the DTDs and thus I'm in favor of supporting it. Ideally, the support of conref should really be a xml spec rather than a docbook or dita spec.. On the flip side, conrefs do introduce an extra processing step in publishing - which is not desirable/feasible in dynamic publishing systems where you want to dynamically organize a bunch of topics and generate a book/topic collection out of it without having to set conref files.. Regards. -- Rajal On May 9, 2008, at 12:39 PM, Johnson, Eric wrote: > > +1 to DITA-like conref support. > > It would be nice to have a way to easily reuse pieces of content > without > having to import their containing element. There are many times I have > had a chapter in a small book that I would like to have used as a > section in a large book without importing the chapter section by > section > using xinclude. > > -----Original Message----- > From: Fabrice (GMail) [mailto:fabrice.talbot@gmail.com] > Sent: Friday, May 09, 2008 3:11 PM > To: 'Dick Hamilton'; 'Dave Pawson'; docbook@lists.oasis-open.org > Cc: docbook-apps@lists.oasis-open.org > Subject: [docbook] RE: [docbook-apps] db 5 and Dita anyone? > > IMHO, specialization would be an interesting feature to add, though > targeted at advanced users. Since Docbook is explicitly designed for > books, a large number of Docbook users should be able to achieve their > goals with the current DTD/schema. My guess is that 10% to 20% of > Docbook users would really benefit from it. More feedback on this from > the community would help. > > I see more value in adding "DITA-like conref" support. Content re- > use is > one of the key benefits you get when moving to single-source. Adding a > simple way for authors to re-use small piece of content in Docbook > would > make a big difference! > > Cheers > Fabrice > > -----Original Message----- > From: Dick Hamilton [mailto:rlhamilton@frii.com] > Sent: Thursday, May 01, 2008 10:53 AM > To: 'Dave Pawson'; docbook@lists.oasis-open.org > Cc: docbook-apps@lists.oasis-open.org > Subject: RE: [docbook-apps] db 5 and Dita anyone? > > Dave, > > You make a good point; I suspect Eliot is not familiar with Norm's > article, "DITA for DocBook" (http://norman.walsh.name/2005/10/21/ > dita), > which shows how to specialize DocBook, and provides a customization to > the stylesheets to support specialization. I posted a reply to his > blog > entry suggesting he take a look at it and comment. > > The question this does raise is whether it makes sense to include a > means of specialization as part of the standard. While I like the > idea > of being able to specialize, I'm sure that making it a normative > part of > the spec is not trivial, even if we simply formalize Norm's strategy. > > I'd be interested in hearing what others on the list think about > formalizing specialization. To that end, I'm copying this to the > docbook list, which is probably the best place for that discussion. > > Dick Hamilton > http://rlhamilton.net > > >> -----Original Message----- >> From: Dave Pawson [mailto:davep@dpawson.co.uk] >> Sent: Saturday, April 19, 2008 2:25 AM >> To: Docbook Apps >> Subject: [docbook-apps] db 5 and Dita anyone? >> >> >> Eliot is running comments on DITA and docbook when choosing an XML >> vocabulary, concluding >> >> DITA is the best answer for any XML-based document-centric >> application > >> I've seen. >> > http://drmacros-xml-rants.blogspot.com/2008/04/choosing-xml-schema- > docbo > ok-or-dita.html > > His last para is interesting. > > why doesn't DocBook simply adopt DITA's specialization mechanism? It > would cost DocBook almost nothing to add and add tremendous value. It > would not require DocBook changing anything about its current markup > design, except to possibly back-form some base types that are > currently > not explicit in DocBook but would be useful as a specialization base. > But that would only make DocBook cleaner. > > > I'm not a DITA user. It appears Eliot hasn't looked at db5 either. > > > regards > > -- > Dave Pawson > XSLT XSL-FO FAQ. > http://www.dpawson.co.uk > > --------------------------------------------------------------------- > To unsubscribe, e-mail: docbook-apps-unsubscribe@lists.oasis-open.org > For additional commands, e-mail: docbook-apps-help@lists.oasis- > open.org > > > > > --------------------------------------------------------------------- > To unsubscribe, e-mail: docbook-apps-unsubscribe@lists.oasis-open.org > For additional commands, e-mail: docbook-apps-help@lists.oasis- > open.org > > > --------------------------------------------------------------------- > To unsubscribe, e-mail: docbook-unsubscribe@lists.oasis-open.org > For additional commands, e-mail: docbook-help@lists.oasis-open.org > > --------------------------------------------------------------------- > To unsubscribe, e-mail: docbook-unsubscribe@lists.oasis-open.org > For additional commands, e-mail: docbook-help@lists.oasis-open.org >
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