Re: [dita] Discussion of conref href= value syntax

["W. Eliot Kimber" <ekimber@innodata-isogen.com>]

Michael Priestley wrote:
> 
> This is in the language spec, right?

Yes.

> There's a consolidated topic on referencing in the architectural spec, 
> first topic under "Behaviors".

I see this now.

I would not have expected to find this information under a section 
titled "behaviors" since addressing syntax has nothing to do (directly) 
with behavior (that is, the way that one uses addressing or the syntax 
involved has nothing to do with the behavior that might be implied by 
the link that uses the address).

I think that perhaps the better title for this section is "DITA 
processing semantics"--"behavior" suggests, at least to me, behavior *of 
renditions* (that is, behavior as in "link behavior", which is about 
interaction) rather than behavior of *processors* which is what this 
section is mostly talking about.

In any case, I think this information should also be in the language 
spec, so that the language spec can stand on its own as a specification 
of the syntax.

Note that the discussion under behaviors isn't 100% accurate in it's use 
of the term "URI" in that it implies that the URI is everything *before* 
the fragement identifier when in fact a URI includes the fragment 
identifier.

Also, I didn't see it here and I haven't noticed it anywhere else, but 
the spec doesn't seem to say whether element IDs must be unique within 
the scope of their *immediate parent* topic or simply within the scope 
of some ancestor topic. I think the intent is that they are unique 
within the scope of their immediate parent but that isn't said 
explicitly and it should be.

For example, if I have nested topics, I might think that I can address 
elements within the nested topics by using the ancestor topic's topic ID.

Cheers,

E.

-- 
W. Eliot Kimber
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