RE: [docbook] Add topic element to DocBook?

My comments at the end to keep the flow:

Thanks.

-----Original Message-----
From: chris.chiasson@gmail.com [mailto:chris.chiasson@gmail.com] On Behalf Of Chris Chiasson
Sent: Friday, October 27, 2006 9:13 AM
To: Rajal Shah
Cc: Johnson, Eric; docbook@lists.oasis-open.org
Subject: Re: [docbook] Add topic element to DocBook?

On 10/27/06, Rajal Shah <rajal@meshsoftware.com> wrote:

> It greatly facilitates modular writing, where we're not just focused on

> books but individual units of information.. The style of writing in the book

> changes from being a single flow from beginning-to-end to instead be a

> collection of topics.. This allows organizations (I work at Juniper), to

> provide their content in book form as well as searchable topics on the web

> or for re-use of content elsewhere.

Part of the problem seems to be that we are trying to make something

that is a ground-up phenomenon - modular writing via <topic> - fit

into a bottom-down hierarchy.

>>>>

Rajal ->

Very true! I've struggled with that dichotomoy too.. I've often wondered if we should have a DocTopic v/s a DocBook mechanism! J

Seriously though, I think DITA is taking a grounds-up approach; and DocBook’s value-add would be to support topics in the bottom-down hierarchy.. Cause, in the real world, people want to do books or already have books and want to reuse existing content in the form of topics too..

I believe, that the books will never go away and thus support of topics inside a DocBook bottom-down hierarchy would be the eventual winner over something like DITA. (We need something like maps too, though)..

Regards.

Rajal

docbook message