Re: [docbook] [dbx g2] using modules; version attribute

[Tobias Reif <tobiasreif at pinkjuice dot com>]

Bob Stayton wrote:

[...]
> > I just heard from a project in a University that they switched away from 
> > DocBook. The said the language and the related tools are too large.
> I'd be curious to know what the circumstances were.


I don't know. But if you really are interested, I can send you the email 
address of the guy who told me about the decision; feel free to contact 
me offlist.


> I'm quite sure there are many projects for which
> DocBook is not a good fit.


No doubt, no surprise, no contradiction.

> That doesn't mean there
> is something inherently wrong with DocBook.


I didn't say there would be. I just reported that they switched away 
from it because it and it's tools are too large; that's what they said.

Easy to use modularization, especially for subsetting, could help in 
such cases.


> I would agree that if modularization becomes an option,
> then it must be easy to use.  My concern with schema modules
> is that it could make things more complex.  Currently
> you can specify a single DTD and everyone knows
> what's in it, and the tools know what they have to deal
> with.  A single DTD may be big, but it is simpler than handling
> multiple possible combinations of modules.


I think that prototyping will give more relevant answers than anyone 
could give before real-world experience has been collected via practical 
experimentation with prototypes of the new DocBook RNG.


> > * Required Version Atribute
> >
> > It would be great if the new DocBook would have a required version 
> > attribute on the root element. This in addition to the namespace will 
> > make it easier for tools to find out what they are dealing with. (XSLT 
> > has a version attribute, SVG versions higher than 1.0 require one, etc)
> Can you clarify what this version attribute contains?


The version of the language, just as in the languages I listed.

http://www.w3.org/TR/SVG11/struct.html#SVGElement
"version = "<number>"
Indicates the SVG language version to which this document fragment conforms.
In SVG 1.0, this attribute was fixed to the value "1.0". For SVG 1.1, 
the attribute should have the value "1.1"."

http://www.w3.org/TR/xslt20/#stylesheet-element
" [ERR009] An xsl:stylesheet element must have a version attribute, 
indicating the version of XSLT that the stylesheet requires."

(I'd change "requires" to "uses", but that's a detail.)


> Version of the schema?


Version of the language, which can but doesn't have to be the same as 
that of the schema (there will/might be multiple schemas written in DTD 
RNG etc, and some minor versions of a schema might not change the 
language). Schemas describe a version of the language.

> Is this intended as a replacement
> for a DOCTYPE declaration?


No (please also see SVG). But unlike the doctype declaration, it would 
be accessible to tools such as XSLT 1 etc.

Namespace name (eg a URI) plus version attribute proved to be quite a 
good "replacement for a DOCTYPE declaration" in SVG and 
XSLTransformation documents. Tools can quickly and easily find out which 
language is used (SVG, XSLT) and which version of that language (1.0, 
2.0, 1.1, 1.2).

> Would this try to capture the
> combinations of modules used in the current document?


You just gave me an idea ... :)


Tobi


--
http://www.pinkjuice.com/


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