Re: [docbook] Re: [docbook-apps] proposed additions to DocBook for programming languages

[Thibaut Cuvelier <dourouc05@gmail.com>]

Hi Stefan,

The two tag sets serve a similar purpose, but are very different in their implementation: the Boost-based set looks like an equivalent to refentry & co. (the base item is an API/library), while the one I proposed on GitHub is rather based on the synopses (the base item is either a class, an enumeration, a macro, or a namespace â the closest item to Boost root).

Also, the Boost extension adds many many tags (77) ithout being similar to what already exists in DocBook, while mine tries to use fewer tags (18, 15 with a generic synopsisinfo) and to mimic the existing semantics.

The final difference I see is that the Boost extension is really revolving around C++ (with concepts like headers, which are not present in that many languages), while I tried to be as language-agnostic as possible while being able to model as many things as possible.

Just to highlight a few differences between both :). Actually, I had a look at BoostBook before choosing to design something else.

Thibaut Cuvelier

On Mon, 29 Apr 2019 at 19:23, stefan <stefan@seefeld.name> wrote:

Hi Bob,

I haven't used DocBook for quite a while, and unfortunately have been too busy recently to keep track or even contribute. However, there are a number of unfinished tasks that relate to this topic:

On 2019-04-29 12:41 p.m., Bob Stayton wrote:

The DocBook Technical Committee has received a detailed proposal to enhance the DocBook schema to better document the details of programming languages. The Committee would like to request that those in the DocBook community who use DocBook to document programming syntax to look over the proposal and provide us with feedback. I'm sending this to both the 'docbook' and 'docbook-apps' mailing lists to ensure coverage, so my apologies for duplicate messages.

They are proposing a number of new elements. Since DocBook already has a large number of elements and since this markup is somewhat specialized, we are considering making it an optional extension to the schema, similar to the Publisher's extension.

Quite a while ago A DocBook extension was developed as part of the Boost project, adding support for C++ artefacts. While that work was based on DocBook 4, I eventually mentored a GSoC student to port this to DocBook 5, for eventual integration with both the DocBook 5 spec as well as stylesheet support. And while the GSoC project was successfully completed, the branch was never merged into master, and thus has never been formally released.

I believe all the work is contained in the "API" branch of the XSLT 1.0 repo: https://github.com/docbook/xslt10-stylesheets/tree/api. Notably, the extension RelaxNG specs are in https://github.com/docbook/xslt10-stylesheets/tree/api/docbook/relaxng/api/src, and the stylesheet (which merely translate into the "core DocBook" vocabulary) are in https://github.com/docbook/xslt10-stylesheets/tree/api/xsl/api.

It would be a shame if all of this work was wasted.

You will note in the comment that the proposal will likely be modified to use a generic synopsisinfo element instead of individually named synopsis info elements as originally proposed.

Here is a link to the proposal:

https://github.com/docbook/docbook/issues/111

Your review and comments will help the DocBook TC in their deliberations about this proposal. Thank you for your time.

-- 
Bob Stayton
Sagehill Enterprises
bobs@sagehill.net

--

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