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Subject: E-mails exchanged with Markus Wiedenaier about not distributing XSDs for DITA 2.0


Start from the bottom and read up, if interested.

Best,
Kris

Kristen James Eberlein
Chair, OASIS DITA Technical Committee
OASIS Distinguished Contributor
Principal consultant, Eberlein Consulting LLC
www.eberleinconsulting.com
+1 919 622-1501; kriseberlein (skype)




-------- Forwarded Message --------
Subject: AW: AW: DITA 2.0 - DTD, XSD and RNG
Date: Sun, 20 Jun 2021 13:20:00 +0000
From: markus.wiedenmaier <markus.wiedenmaier@c-rex.net>
To: Kristen James Eberlein <kris@eberleinconsulting.com>
CC: Robert Anderson <robert.dan.anderson@oracle.com>


Hi Kris,

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first of all, many thanks you are taking my concerns serious, and for this chat on a hot weekend.

Â

I understand your arguments very well. I just find it a bit unfortunate that this limits the technology and thus the use of tools to actually one.

BTW: this would also happen if only RNG would be supported. The general distribution of RNG is even more limited than the DTD is in the meantime.

Â

I am now slowly coming to terms with the fact that we have to live with it. ð

Let me know if I can do anything. Giving a hand or whatever is necessary to do.

Â

Have a great Sunday

Markus

Â

Von: Kristen James Eberlein <kris@eberleinconsulting.com>
Gesendet: Sonntag, 20. Juni 2021 14:56
An: markus.wiedenmaier <markus.wiedenmaier@c-rex.net>
Cc: Robert Anderson <robert.dan.anderson@oracle.com>
Betreff: Re: AW: DITA 2.0 - DTD, XSD and RNG

Â

Hi, Markus.

This is my personal opinion -- I will bring up your suggestion at a TC meeting -- but I think there is no chance AT ALL that we would stop distributing DTDs and go back to distributing XSD.

By far, the majority of DITA tools use DTDs. The only tools that require XSDs (that I am aware of) are XEditor, Fonto XML, and your company's tool set. In constrast, there are more than three dozen widely-used tools that require DTDs.

In an ideal world, the DITA TC would only distribute RNG-based grammar files. That is the normative format for DITA. But, we continue to ship DTD-based grammar files because of the large number of tools that require them.

The DITA TC decided to stop distributing XSDs because we do not have the resources to support them. At the time we made that decision, we discussed our options, and we came to the conclusion that the only way that we could continue to distribute XSD-based grammar files would be if there were voting members of the TC with the time and skills to develop, test, and maintain the XSDs over the lone run. And the DITA TC just does not have those people!

Best,
Kris

Kristen James Eberlein
Chair, OASIS DITA Technical Committee
OASIS Distinguished Contributor
Principal consultant, Eberlein Consulting LLC
www.eberleinconsulting.com
+1 919 622-1501; kriseberlein (skype)

On 6/20/2021 6:04 AM, markus.wiedenmaier wrote:

Hi Kris,

Â

many thanks for your very fast reply.

Sure, these are the workarounds I have in mind and we and our customers need to do.

And of course Iâm sure we will get this managed for our tools in any way, and Iâm glad this is on table that early.

Â

But, Iâm sure you understand, starting with workarounds is not a good way, and IMHO removing very old DTDs from a standard would be the better choice, than removing a more modern standard which is supported by more than just one tool, and furthermore provides much more possibilities than DTDs.

For that reason, out-of-the-box dependency to just one processor (Saxon) for me is substantial for a standard like DITA. And this is not DotNet only which has limited support for RNG and DTD.

Â

Thanks for listening and have a great Sunday.

Markus

Â

Von: Kristen James Eberlein <kris@eberleinconsulting.com>
Gesendet: Samstag, 19. Juni 2021 12:46
An: markus.wiedenmaier <markus.wiedenmaier@c-rex.net>
Betreff: Re: DITA 2.0 - DTD, XSD and RNG

Â

Hi, Markus.

I'll relay your concerns to the DITA Technical Committee.

But I do want to be clear -- We are not suggesting that you use DTDs. For implementations or tool vendors that have a dependency on XSD, we suggest that you do the following:

  1. (If you use OASIS grammar files out-of-the-box) Generate a monolithic XSD from the RNG (or DTD) that OASIS provides. Jing can do this fairly well, with only some minor tweaks needed to the resulting XSD.
  2. (If you use custom document-type shells and perhaps specializations) Build your DITA grammar files using RNG or DTD, and then generate a monolithic XSD from your custom grammar files.

Yes, this does mean that you'll have some additional work to do, but it should not be substantial.

Do you think this will work for your company and its tools?

Best,
Kris

Kristen James Eberlein
Chair, OASIS DITA Technical Committee
OASIS Distinguished Contributor
Principal consultant, Eberlein Consulting LLC
www.eberleinconsulting.com
+1 919 622-1501; kriseberlein (skype)


On 6/19/2021 6:14 AM, markus.wiedenmaier wrote:

Hi Kris,

Â

I hope you are doing well and many thanks for the great DITA2.0 insides I heard this week.

May be you know that I had a question related to removing of XSD support in this next release, and I still have some concerns about that.

Since there is plenty of time till the final release, please let me try to explain why.

Â

First of all I understand your arguments, that maintaining 3 different types of type definition is not sustainable. So Iâm with you that one of those can be removed.

But what I don't understand is why a 50 year old standard, the DTD, is preferred over the modern XSD, which provides much more features.

Yes there are tool providers which support DTD, and maybe DTD only. But DITA 2.0 is a not-backwards-compatible release. Stated this, their should be any problem to be consequent here and remove DTD instead of XSD. And BTW there is not big issue, to migrate these reference too, when moving to 2.0

Â

But my main point here is, that this means a unique dependency to Saxon. What is not bad at first, as this is the most comprehensive tool available in the XML environment.

But not supporting XSD any longer makes a lot of problems in environments like DotNet. DotNet doesnât support DTDs very well and this is not maintained any longer. And there is not only no native support, but also no community for which RelaxNG is important. So there is no really working RelaxNG environment in DotNet.

Â

This means the only alternative really is Saxon. Yes there is a DotNet build available. Should not be a problem right? Yes there is.

To build DotNet-libraries, Saxon uses IKVM to come to the other World. And since 21th of April 2017 IKVM is not support any longer.

This means that we are bound to a DotNet Framework lower than 3.5. DotNet Framework 3.5 was released on 19th of November 2007, 14 years ago.

Meanwhile DotNet Core 6 will be released in Autumn, which means a complete new environment/technology, where libraries based on this old framework are hard to integrate, especially if you think of new possibilities in deployment and micro-services technology, today and in near future.

Â

Long story short:

Preferring DTD over XSD means that DITA 2.0 is not only based on a old Standard (DTD) it forces developers to use old technologies or to implement a lot of workarounds to make things working in a modern environment.

Â

I know itâs easy to complain about things others do, but I really have doubts that going this way is good.

If I can do anything please let me know. Is there any good way to start a more public discussion to get more opinions about this topic?

Â

Thanks for reading my mail and thanks in advance for your feedback.

Â

Mit freundlichen GrÃÃen / Best regards / Met vriendelijke groeten

Salutations / Saludos / ÎÎ ÏÎÎÎÎÎÏÏ ÏÎÎÏÎÏÎÏÎÎÏÏ / æå / çå

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Markus Wiedenmaier

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