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Re: XML-based Help Authoring tools for customized help
Subject:Re: XML-based Help Authoring tools for customized help From:David Neeley <dbneeley -at- oddpost -dot- com> To:"TECHWR-L" <techwr-l -at- lists -dot- raycomm -dot- com> Date:Sat, 13 Dec 2003 13:35:47 -0800 (PST)
Mark, as much as I have enjoyed many of your contributions to the list over the past days particularly, I think you have been a bit wide of the mark with your latest remarks. However, as always I stand quite ready to be corrected if I am misunderstanding something.
-----Original Message from Mark Baker <listsub -at- analecta -dot- com>-----
Bill Lawrence wrote:
> The great advantage of Docbook, TEI, DITA, ThML, and heaven knows what
> else is that they are standards. There are readily available tools,
> books, training courses, discussion lists, users groups,
> people-who-already-know-the-technology-to-be-hired, etc.
"Actually, what they are is out of the box applications with specific
semantics."
Sorry, Mark, but I am totally confused by your remark. Apparently, you and I have a *VERY* different understanding of the word "applications." Of course, various other people within the XML community have likewise been a little loose with the term from time to time.
>From your discussion of databases, it appears also that you are mixing the concepts of "a" database populated with information and a "database engine" or *application.* I believe a more appropriate parallel between database technology would be between the business rules that are defined by the individual database table designs within a given related employment of the database and the standards such as DocBook or TEI or such.
I truly believe that the parallel you attempt to draw between Frame styles and DocBook tags is only partly accurate. When you comment that DocBook style tags and Frame style tags "...they allow you to abstract the final appearance of your document by applying named styles to content elements," I believe that is not completely correct. Frame *style* tags are just that--tags which denote a particular format independent of the use within the document. They may be named in a fashion which indicates the function of the element, true enough. However, they are not designed to be altered with any sort of equivalent to schema or DTD...and thus are not truly "abstracts" of appearance but are very precisely defined instances of formatting. Thus, I believe you are only partly accurate in making the simile.
"Adopting Docbook, then, is like buying a copy of Frame and finding that
there is only one template that has been decided on in advance by Abobe, and
everyone is expected to use it. Yes, you can change the definitions of the
styles, but not the set of stylenames. Oh, and by the way, Adobe does not
guarantee that the template will be the same from one verion of Frame to the
next. It may introduce backward incompatible changes in the next version."
No, adopting DocBook would be more equivalent to buying a particular set of Frame templates. Again, DocBook is *not* an application in the commonly understood sense of the word. However, it is *also* true that in the marketplace today, many more individuals are already familiar with DocBook than they might be with any given XML instance...and thus, finding people with a short lead time to productivity may be simpler.
The fact is that DocBook is as a standard a *superset* of what most users will need; it permits various combinations of styles which may work best for one organization and another subset for another without departing from the standard. In fact, that is why more accessible forms have been introduced such as "Simplified DocBook." With an appropriate schema or DTD, of course, you can produce a wide variety of appearance details for any given instance of a DocBook-compliant document using any of the *applications* which you may prefer that can work with the standard.
That is, in fact, why SGML and later XML were first developed.
As for using DocBook or another XML standard versus some other custom-built approach, that also depends very largely upon the flexibility you wish to have later on in the life of the document. Because of the rapid evolution of products such as content management systems that understand XML, and because of the growing understanding of and tools for the major standards such as DocBook, I believe that the place you should start today may well be a selection of the subset of one of these standards. By selecting the basics from HTML as you suggest would be abandoning the easy introduction of these fast-maturing tools.
Later, should you have enough data to make a CMS appropriate, wouldn't it be *nice* if you *already* have your documents in a form which can immediately be used?
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