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Subject: Re: [dita] Re: Discuss list processing expectations



I respect your right to instruct your users on best practices - please respect my right to do the same.

I'm genuinely confused by the sticking point here, which seems to be that translation tools cannot recognize that the occurrence of a block element in a para signals the end of the current segment. My suggestion that we update the segmentation rules is not meant to be inflammatory - I thought it was the easiest solution. If it's not, then let's look at other solutions, although I continue to see it as a tool limitation.

Perhaps the mismatch is more fundamental - if segmentation rules assume that the property inline or block is inherent to the element, and XML assumes that the element role is determined by its container's content model, then we are always going to have edge cases, and perhaps this is one of them.

If necessary, we could perhaps introduce a preprocessing step for translation tools - to make the implicit segments explicit. I'm not sure of how the details would work, but it's an approach that seemed to resolve an equivalent impasse with conref (in the case of conreffing proper nouns). In other words, if we want flexibility for the author, but predictability for the translators, let's see if we can't find a solution that provides both.

Michael Priestley
Lead IBM DITA Architect
mpriestl@ca.ibm.com
http://dita.xml.org/blog/25



"Gershon L Joseph \[Yahoo\]" <gljoseph@yahoo.com>

04/15/2008 09:12 AM

To
Michael Priestley/Toronto/IBM@IBMCA
cc
DITA TC List <dita@lists.oasis-open.org>, JoAnn Hackos <joann.hackos@comtech-serv.com>, Robert D Anderson <robander@us.ibm.com>, Rob Frankland <robf@sockmonkeyconsult.com>
Subject
Re: [dita] Re: Discuss list processing expectations





It is very questionable whether HTML can be considered a good markup language. I suggest we ignore HTML for the purposes of this discussion.
 
I know we've had lots of discussions in the DocBook TC about allowing things like lists inside paragraphs, and I think many of the TC members were against this and many didn't care, which is how it got in.
 
I encourage my users to mark up in a way that is clean, yields predictable results, and works with today's tools. I don't see any point in having them mark up in a way that costs them down the line. Blame the tools if you like, but I prefer successful implementations rather than having to blame the tools for failed projects.

Gershon

----- Original Message ----
From: Michael Priestley <mpriestl@ca.ibm.com>
To: Gershon L Joseph [Yahoo] <gljoseph@yahoo.com>
Cc: DITA TC List <dita@lists.oasis-open.org>; JoAnn Hackos <joann.hackos@comtech-serv.com>; Robert D Anderson <robander@us.ibm.com>; Rob Frankland <robf@sockmonkeyconsult.com>
Sent: Tuesday, April 15, 2008 3:51:32 PM
Subject: Re: [dita] Re: Discuss list processing expectations


DocBook allows list inside paragraph, just like DITA.


HTML allows a mix of blocks and paragraphs in other contexts like inside a list item.


So this is not unique to DITA.


If the current segmentation rules are at odds with the rules of many major markup languages and a large body of users disagrees with them, whose interests are being served by protecting the existing segmentation rules?


Which is easier to update, several major authoring markup languages plus all authoring community best practices, or XLIFF?


Note: I would say *all* the major markup languages, but I only checked two besides DITA.


Michael Priestley



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