docbook-apps

I was talking to someone last night and they mentioned that the biggest
use case, and the one that is causing everyone to flock to DITA, for
using DocBook is to take the schema and then customize it.
My first reaction was to think "That's completely crazy. This person is
obviously just a DITA cultist and seeing the world through tinted
lenses." Then the cynic in me piped up and said "People often do crazy
things."
Is this a big use case in the DocBook world? Do organizations start with
standard DocBook and then tweak it around to make some customized
version of the schema that is no longer DocBook?
Why would an organization customize DocBook instead of adopting DITA
which is built with the (almost) requirement that it be customized?
What is the cost of doing the customization?
One of the reasons my group adopted DocBook was that the schema did not
need to be customized. We had to create a few guidelines around using
certain tags, but that was much easier than modifying the schema.
Perhaps in larger groups using the schema to enforce rules is more
desirable.

Eric Johnson wrote:
> I was talking to someone last night and they mentioned that the biggest
> use case, and the one that is causing everyone to flock to DITA, for
> using DocBook is to take the schema and then customize it.
>
> My first reaction was to think "That's completely crazy. This person is
> obviously just a DITA cultist and seeing the world through tinted
> lenses." Then the cynic in me piped up and said "People often do crazy
> things."
>
> Is this a big use case in the DocBook world? Do organizations start with
> standard DocBook and then tweak it around to make some customized
> version of the schema that is no longer DocBook?
>
> Why would an organization customize DocBook instead of adopting DITA
> which is built with the (almost) requirement that it be customized?
>
> What is the cost of doing the customization?
> One of the reasons my group adopted DocBook was that the schema did not
> need to be customized. We had to create a few guidelines around using
> certain tags, but that was much easier than modifying the schema.
> Perhaps in larger groups using the schema to enforce rules is more
> desirable.
>

My 0.02Euros worth.

I find that the way v5 has been designed, customization is
almost trivial.

Call up your own rng schema.
Tweak the definitions you want to change
Import the docbook schema from there.
Job done.

E.g

<include href="/sgml/docbook/v5/rng/docbookxi.rng">
<define name="db.para.blocks" combine="choice">
<choice>
<ref name="db.anchor"/>
<ref name="db.para"/>
<ref name="db.formalpara"/>
<ref name="db.simpara"/>
<ref name="poem"/>
</choice>
</define>
</include>

I added poem

My definition of that is outside docbook.

Just in case

<start combine='choice'>
<choice>
<ref name="poem"/>
</choice>
</start>

I can't say it's hard.

HTH




regards

--
Dave Pawson
XSLT XSL-FO FAQ.
http://www.dpawson.co.uk

On 2009-05-19 08:11, Eric Johnson wrote:
> Why would an organization customize DocBook instead of adopting DITA
> which is built with the (almost) requirement that it be customized?

If DocBook is more or less what you like to use, but not quite?

> What is the cost of doing the customization?

I did customization of DocBook for an ex-employer. So take this
as an example.

Requirements at that time:

1. Include custom XML data into DocBook documents.
2. Use of DocBook para element in one custom XML element.

Customizing the DocBook defintion (RNG or DTD) was really easy.
(Maybe with v5 it's even more easy.) The challenge was adopting
the tool chain, e.g. docbook-apps. So we did it the "easy way":
Hacking a simple XSL file that transformed (with xsltproc) the
customized DocBook into standard DocBook.