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Re: objection to docbook.dcl


Adam Di Carlo <adam@onshore.com> writes:

> * NAMELEN is too short
> 
> The NAMELEN quantity set in docbook.dcl is set to 45, rather than the
> default SP NAMELEN of 99999999.

It's set to 44.

> One wonders why we need to diverge from the reference concrete syntax
> here.

The Reference Concrete Syntax is even more restrictive; it uses the
Reference Quantity Set (13.4.8, p. 470, fig. 6) which sets NAMELEN to 8.


Adam Di Carlo <adam@onshore.com> writes:

> Yes -- I'm not against a declaratation.  I'm just against a
> declaration which is unnecessarily restrictive, with the consequence
> that a non-trival number (perhaps 30%?  more?) of the docbook SGML
> documents out there will fail to conform to it.

It's time to fix these documents (at least for distribution and exchange
purposes).  The SGML declaration is part of the document and the SGML
system has to make sure the right declaration will be used for
validation.

> I don't know -- maybe there's a good reason why for interchange
> OMITTAG must be off.  Do some tools out there not understand that?

Don't know.  Judging from my experiences with HTML applications the
value of OMITTAG is important but unfortunately not respected...

> Maybe's there's a good reason the NAMELEN is so tight, but I don't
> know it -- it should match the reference concrete syntax (which I
> guess I don't have a copy of -- I muddled it with the implied SP
> declaration).

Not at all!  SP claims to use the "Extended Naming Rules as specified in
Annex J of ISO 8879:1986 (added by the 1996 technical corrigendum)" if
the user omits an own declaration.  Extended Naming Rules exceeds the
Reference Concrete Syntax by far :)

First: I fully appreciate and support your hard work on openjade --
thanks a lot!  Unfortunately, I'm not able to contribute to this project
(I'm not a (C++) hacker).  Nevertheless we should try to get the facts
right.

> Well, OpenJade *does* support DTDDECL, and that's what led me to
> examine this issue.

The devel version does support DTDDECL.

> (Whether OpenJade is widespread is another issue, but it is better
> than Jade IMHO).

I do ship openjade 1.3 for SuSE Linux since quite some time; at the
moment, 1.5 is not an option since it's a) flagged as a "devel" or
"pre-release" _and_ you told us about known issues: it's slower the jade
(that the most important point at the moment).

> Since I was (but am no longer) shipping the Debian package catalog
> files with the DTDDECLs intact, as provided to me from OASIS, I
> suddenly had a situation where openjade couldn't cope with my DocBook
> SGML files.

If the forces behind DocBook (OASIS members?) will acknowledge the
problem and release a less restrictive declaration I'm willing to accept
the new declaration and make it available on SuSE Linux (ASAP).  If they
don't do it authors will have to fixe their documents ;-(

> I have no philosophical problem with a strict DECL for interchange.

Same with me.

> However, that leads me to wonder whether perhaps we should establish a
> special SGML FPI with the more restrictive declaration in effect, and
> leave the implied declaration for normal files.

I'm not that happy to rely on implied features or an "implied
declaration".  Even if (open)sp is the only validating parser I'm aware
of we'll have to play nice and to give other software the chance, too.
Thus, every DTD has to ship a declaration, too; otherwise the Reference
Concrete Syntax is implied...

> Some kind of "DocBook Strict" perhaps?

Should be done for version 5; someone will have to write an (inofficial)
DTD for version 5, BTW ;)

[Question: what's up with the docbook-tc address?  Is this a public
mailinglist?]

-- 
work : ke@suse.de                          |                   ,__o
     : http://www.suse.de/~ke/             |                 _-\_<,
home : keichwa@gmx.net                     |                (*)/'(*)

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