Re: DOCBOOK: Re: A straw proposal for help topics in DocBook

[Ed Nixon <ed.nixon@LynnParkPlace.org>]

Comments inline, below.

At 06:48 AM 19/10/2001 -0400, Norman Walsh wrote:
>/ Bob Stayton <bobs@caldera.com> was heard to say:
>| I think Karl's point is that before new elements are added
>| to Docbook, that someone should convince the skeptics that the

Skeptics: perhaps to some it is more an issue of resource and time 
utilization. It's a sticky issue because we are not working with 
conventional economic constraints or priorities, i.e., this is voluntary 
work by and large. So the concern might be expressed thus: should time be 
spent on new, perhaps questionable, perhaps highly intrusive and complex 
design and development work OR should time be spent on ensuring / improving 
the various documentation and support foundations of the current 
environment. It's a hard question in the light of, say, promoting and 
evangelizing DocBook because both alternatives have potential for wining 
new users. The first, the online, hypertext authoring community; the 
second, the less than inveterate (but potentially advocacy useful) user 
community, e.g., generic business consultants & analysts, project mangers.

>| legitimate needs for generating help output cannot be met
>| using existing elements, role attributes, and stylesheets.
>
>Well, it all depends on how tightly you want to define "cannot be
>met".  This is a slippery slope, DocBook doesn't really "need" all
>those inlines, for example, everything could be done with <phrase>
>and some attributes. :-)

Perhaps it's the old trade off between "richness" and "complexity". These 
qualities lie on a continuum and are in the eyes of the beholder, dependent 
on level, type and duration of experience with the packages. The new Guide 
and additional well organized, web-based support material would move the 
centre of gravity of this continuum further toward "rich" and away from 
"complex". This is a good thing.

><snip>
>
>We could say, "it's technically possible, they oughta learn how to do
>it 'our way'", but I'm reluctant to do that without at least
>considering other options.

Yes. Particularly when the impetus to change may be intrinsic to the person 
rather than extrinsic from the organization he or she is working for.

               Regards.             ...edN