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Re: XHTML tables


Tobias Reif wrote:
> 
> Jirka Kosek wrote:
> 
> > How then you want to distinguish between CALS/HTML model, if many
> > element names are same (table/tbody/thead/tfoot)?
> 
> This has been answered in my previous posts. The XHTML table elements
> would be in their own namespace; the DTD, not knowing about namespaces,
> would distinguish them by prefix.

Well DocBook and namespaces... You should study DocBook TC meeting
minutes more carefully. For several reasons (mainly DTD compatibility)
plugin fullfledged namespaces into DocBook isn't as easy as it
should/could/??? be. AFAIK TC was considering adding HTML tables in same
namespace (ie. no namespace) as rest of DocBook elements.

If I should go more deeply, having HTML tables in a separate namespace
will be realy overkill from document authoring perspective. You will
either need to prefix all HTML table elements and you wouldn't be then
able to cut'n'paste from HTML. Or you will use default namespace for
table element, so there won't be need for prefixing, but then you will
be forced to change default namespace for table cell content. And this
will be hassle as table cell can contain mixed content.
 
> > <grin>But remember, I can always spend 250 USD reserved for holidays as
> > annual OASIS fee and vote against adding HTML tables!</grin>
> 
> This is one of the reasons why I won't continue the discussion with you.

Take it easy and read also markup, not just element content. This was
joke. Really. I know several people from TC personally and I know that
they will decide responsibly weighting all pros and cons.
 
> I can understand that if you ran out of arguments you have to look for
> other means, namely threatening to throw $s at the decision, but then I
> will have to leave you at that level, and refuse to join you.

Do as you want, but I have a lot of arguments against HTML tables in
DocBook. But it is you who hadn't answered my questions which led to
some conclusion and summarizations:

--- snip from previous mail ---
If I understand your point, you are proposing to add HTML tables because
they are easier to author than CALS ones? Then may I ask you, how many
people using DocBook do you know and how many people you trained in
using DocBook?

I'm doing commercial DocBook training and I'm also teaching basics of
DocBook as a part of my XML course at university. Till today I think
that I had something between 100-200 DocBook students. They had many
problems with DocBook markup and its "philosophy", with processing and
so on, but CALS tables wasn't problem at all. Just tell them, use <row>
instead
of <tr>, <entry> instead of <th/td> and surround it with <tgroup> with
column count. This is very easy to understand, I don't see any
complexity in CALS here.

If you are speaking from position of implementor who has some problems
processing CALS tables (yes, getting colspec from namest/nameend isn't
trivial) I'm sorry but I can't take this into account. Computers and
technolgies in general should serve to their users not to their
developers.
-------

					Jirka

P.S. For everyone else: I know that this discussion is getting quite
tedious, but at least TC will have some input from users. Which is not
case for all issues. :-(

-- 
-----------------------------------------------------------------
  Jirka Kosek  	                     
  e-mail: jirka at kosek dot cz
  http://www.kosek.cz


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