Re: [docbook] Feedback on DocBook Transclusion proposal

[Jirka Kosek <jirka@kosek.cz>]

Dave Pawson wrote:

> Then from Norms blog I read
> http://norman.walsh.name//2010/12/15/transclusion
> "Will vendors implement it? "
> 
> I had thought that this was implementable using docbook stylesheets?
> is that the case? 

Yes, it is fairly easy to implement transclusion in XSLT 2.0. Proposal
shows proof of concept implementations that supports almost all of
proposal except of interaction of transclusions and profiling.

> If not, has implementation been considered?

The more work will be to implement this in XML editors. I think it is
implementable, the question is whether tool vendors would like to spend
money on developing this features. Remember they already have to support
entities, XIncludes and DITA conref.

> "My other concern is more vague. This feels like something more general
> than DocBook, it seems like something that other schemas might want to
> reuse, so I wonder if it belongs in DocBook specifically. I suppose if
> authors want it and vendors will implement it, we can let other folks
> copy it."
>
> I agree about its complexity, perhaps a W3C attitude of 'show me an
> implementation then I'll give it a mark of approval' might be
> appropriate? I.e. if it proves to be too complex we might need to look
> for an alternative?

Processing complexity is in handling duplicate IDs in repeatedly
inserted content and links to such IDs.

Of course it would be better to develop and use some more generic
approach then to develop something specific to DocBook. The problem is
that solution has to know which attributes are of ID/IDREF types -- it
is hard to do this without schema introspection. Also DocBook specific
mechanism will always nicely fit into language then some generic
vocabulary (compare with XInclude or XLink for example).

				Jirka

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