Re: DOCBOOK: On the size of DocBook...

[Dave Pawson <dpawson@nildram.co.uk>]

At 14:39 05/09/2002, Norman Walsh wrote:


>Certainly one of the complaints that new users make about DocBook is that
>it's "too big". 

An alternate view is that it's viewed as a huge list?
If it were chunked for 'viewing' into (random guesses)
   sw documentor
   book author
   ...
Such that the list were 'head sized' rather than complete,
perhaps we'd not say it was too big?
If I change 'hats' for a minute/or for one job,
then I'd need to dig into that usage, and maybe learn some new tags.
  Until then I could learn 'my' set and be happy?

Just a different view. Just because they are there, doesn't mean
to say I need to 'see' them?


>A few things occur to me.




>3. Some sort of "pizza cutter" a la TEI could be invented to allow
>selection of "just the right" elements. (But what will that do to
>interchange?!)

The interchange would be docbook 'full'?
  Proposal:
    Pizza slice 1 = 'xml author' chunk. Stuff to talk about XML/SGML.


>4. Refactoring the parameter entity structure in a more satisfying way
>might make it easier to customize which would offer some sort of a
>compromise between 1 and 3.

<grin/>No comment, its rocket science already!

regards DaveP