Review of .../download.php/28878/publishers.html

[Norman Walsh <ndw@nwalsh.com>]

Well, not a review, exactly, but a collection of thoughts. No, not
even thoughts. Opinions. Mine alone.

> 3. Explicit support for Dublin Core metadata

This section lists the pattern names, but not actually the names of
the new elements. What are they? Are they in the dc: and dcterms:
namespaces?

> While DocBook already includes many of the elements that are defined
> by the Dublin Core, it is not inherently interoperable with DC
> metadata. The Publisher's SC has decided to formally adopt Dublin
> Core metadata as a formal metadata model for info elements.

I think this is a really bad idea. You've just introduced a whole
bunch of elements that provide two ways to say the same thing. How is
dc.date different from date? How is dc.creator different from author?
How do you deal with groups of "creators"? How is dc.identifier
different from biblioid?

Blech.

> 5. Re-Defined DocBook Content Models

It would be nice if the table summarized the change, rather than making
me read the content models.

I don't think the tabular presentation works very well.

Nested sections inside a sidebar!? Do they appear in the ToC? Can they
be chunked? Are they part of the navigation hiearchy?

> 6. Included DocBook Element Definitions

I don't think the tabular presentation works very well here either.

Maybe it would make sense to have a separate appendix for schema
designers or something? I don't think the average user is going to
care what definition, group, or module is associated with an element.

Why are a lot of the cells absent?

In Acknowledgements, please spell out my first name. 

                                        Be seeing you,
                                          norm

-- 
Norman Walsh <ndw@nwalsh.com> | It costs a great deal to be reasonable;
http://nwalsh.com/            | it costs youth.--Madame de la Fayette

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