RE: [docbook-apps] db 5 and Dita anyone?

["Fabrice \(GMail\)" <fabrice.talbot@gmail.com>]

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

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