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Re: [docbook] [dbx g2] using modules; version attribute
P.S.
Just to clarify, some thoughts:
My idea of modularization is not to have a vast number of modules,
encouraging authors to use supersets all the time.
One module for each of the more or less popular programming languages,
makes 70 modules or 2500 elements total, and results in real complexity,
incomatibilites, and problems.
Instead, I think more of a DocBook language which is approx. the size of
the current version or smaller. It is divided into modules (like the RNG
example I listed, James Clark's XHTML RNG) which are easy to use:
A tool can state: "Version 0.7.1 supports all DocBook XML modules except
the math module."
Then an author can uncomment the math module inclusion, and author
happily. As soon as the tool supports all the DocBook modules, he can
use all of them.
(Also see XHTML 1.1, and SVG 1.1 => SVG Basic and Tiny.)
It should be easy for authors to create subsets of the language; no
compatibility problems or other complexities should arise from that.
(If a tool supports only a subset on the other hand, it won't handle
documents using a subset which is larger in any direction. But many
tools can only support a subset anyways (eg pre-1.0 versions); it's
better if this subset is easy to specify clearly.)
Authors should not be encouraged to use supersets (standard modules plus
extensions). If there are enough tools supporting the full language
(standard modules), issues should not be too numerous.
The size of the next gen DocBook should not be larger just because it's
schema(s) are modularized. It should still consist of generally
applicable tags and attributes.
For domain-specific markup, modeling, etc, authors should use other,
specialized markup languages. They could also use DocBook supersets, but
they must be aware of the issues that may arise in regard to exchange
and tool support.
Tobi
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http://www.pinkjuice.com/
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