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Re: [docbook] Ruminations on the future of DocBook


Just to share my thoughts:

I've, in a way, carried around these ruminations in my mind for some days now. And I've finally come to the conclusion that it is propably the best thing, as Norm suggests, to declare the current version of DocBook finished and move on.

It took me some time to realise that, but I guess it was fairly obvious for some time now, that it wasn't really possible (or at least practical) to move on as DocBook has for some time: supporting SGML and XML, DTD and Schema, and different processing chains.

I am not so much sure where DocBook is moving, though. I'd agree with Norm's modern approach of using XML, Relax-NG, and putting it in a namespace. But what is DocBook really used for today? People author in DocBook, right. But what do they author?
The ongoing discussion about the complexity of DocBook and reducing the number of elements leaves me in doubt about what people use it for.


I've always had the impression that DocBook was very well equipped for structuring different types of technical documents.
It does not get more appropriate or easier to learn if the number of elements is reduced. On the other hand, it would only be time-consuming, if we would start to discuss in which modules a certain element should be included.
(Just for clarification: I agree with cleaning-up DocBook elements.)


Moving from today's valid DocBook to tomorrow's valid DocBook is maybe not the difficult part. I can imagine that it will be much harder for legacy systems to adapt their processing chains.

To sum up: I agree that rethinking DocBook is necessary, but I still do not have a very precise idea of where we are moving, and whether most users are ready to move at all.

Katharina


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