docbook-apps

  • 1.  RELAX NG vs DTD: Sad Statistics

    Posted 06-02-2012 09:02
    (Probably, the discussion I proposed in this post seems too scholastic, but
    it is still close related to DocBook tools and, as I hope, will be able to
    discover some serious problems.)

    1. DocBook XML V5.0 was released two and a half years ago.

    "Schemas for DocBook 5.0 are available in several formats, but only RELAX
    > NG schema is normative and thus preferred. Other schemas are not fully
    > RELAX NG compatible and provided as a convenience for using with legacy
    > tools." [Norman Walsh, DocBook 5: The Definitive Guide]


    2. DocBook XSLT Stylesheets 1.77.0 was released two weeks ago.

    Download statistics (http://sourceforge.net/projects/docbook/files/):
    ================
    docbook-xsl-ns (RELAX NG) - 30 696 downloads (8.5%)
    docbook-xsl (DTD) - 329 401 downloads (91.5%)
    ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
    Total: - 360 097 downloads (100%)

    Only 8.5% of users have transited to RELAX NG, the rest are still stuck to
    "old-fashioned" DTD. Not too brilliant result for 2.5 years, is it?

    Why? *What prevents transition to the new functionality of DocBook 5?* Any
    idea?

    --
    Regards,
    Ivan Zaporozhets
    Divine Dandelion? Online Publishing Service
    http://divinedandelion.blogspot.com/



  • 2.  Re: [docbook-apps] RELAX NG vs DTD: Sad Statistics

    Posted 06-02-2012 19:29
    On 2.6.2012 11:01, Divine Dandelion? wrote:

    > 2. DocBook XSLT Stylesheets 1.77.0 was released two weeks ago.
    >
    > Download statistics (http://sourceforge.net/projects/docbook/files/):
    > ================
    > docbook-xsl-ns (RELAX NG) - 30 696 downloads (8.5%)
    > docbook-xsl (DTD) - 329 401 downloads (91.5%)
    > ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
    > Total: - 360 097 downloads (100%)
    >
    > Only 8.5% of users have transited to RELAX NG, the rest are still stuck to
    > "old-fashioned" DTD. Not too brilliant result for 2.5 years, is it?

    Please note that stylesheets doesn't have any relation to schema
    language used. You can use docbook-xsl for processing both DocBook V4.X
    and DocBook V5.X documents and same apply to docbook-xsl-ns. Differences
    are only in handling some edge cases.

    Also even if download of docbook-xsl-ns would indicate usage of DocBook
    V5.X you don't know what schema language is used for validation of
    DocBook V5.X.

    Also many users are working with DocBook in tools like oXygen or XML
    Mind XML editors that have DocBook stylesheets and schemas preinstalled.

    So you need to investigate better static method before being sad :-)

    Jirka


    --
    ------------------------------------------------------------------
    Jirka Kosek e-mail: jirka@kosek.cz http://xmlguru.cz
    ------------------------------------------------------------------
    Professional XML consulting and training services
    DocBook customization, custom XSLT/XSL-FO document processing
    ------------------------------------------------------------------
    OASIS DocBook TC member, W3C Invited Expert, ISO JTC1/SC34 member
    ------------------------------------------------------------------




  • 3.  Re: [docbook-apps] RELAX NG vs DTD: Sad Statistics

    Posted 06-02-2012 23:35
    On Sat, Jun 2, 2012 at 10:29 PM, Jirka Kosek <jirka@kosek.cz> wrote:

    > On 2.6.2012 11:01, Divine Dandelion? wrote:
    >


    > > Only 8.5% of users have transited to RELAX NG, the rest are still stuck
    > to
    > > "old-fashioned" DTD. Not too brilliant result for 2.5 years, is it?
    >
    > Please note that stylesheets doesn't have any relation to schema
    > language used. You can use docbook-xsl for processing both DocBook V4.X
    > and DocBook V5.X documents and same apply to docbook-xsl-ns. Differences
    > are only in handling some edge cases.
    >
    > Also even if download of docbook-xsl-ns would indicate usage of DocBook
    > V5.X you don't know what schema language is used for validation of
    > DocBook V5.X.
    >
    > Also many users are working with DocBook in tools like oXygen or XML
    > Mind XML editors that have DocBook stylesheets and schemas preinstalled.
    >
    > So you need to investigate better static method before being sad :-)
    >

    Thank you for your answer, it makes me happier! :-)

    Of course, I made pretty rough assumptions; probably something was missed,
    but here my simple logic:

    1. To be valid against RELAX NG schema, the DocBook document must be
    namespaced.
    2. Processing namespaced documents with docbook-xsl has some
    limitations. (I could overestimate this fact, however. If limitations, as
    you wrote, only applied to some edge cases, it may still not force to
    switch to docbook-xsl-ns.)
    3. Thus, it make sense to use docbook-xsl-ns with such documents.

    That explains my "RELAX NG <== namespace <== docbook-xsl-ns" association.

    On the other hand, DTD documents don't require to be namespaced -
    therefore, to be processed with docbook-xsl-ns as well. Even so, it would
    only reduced the percentage of RELAX NG oriented users.

    ---

    And I really didn't take into account oXygen / XML Mind users. You are
    completely right, It may significally change the statistics,


    > --

    Regards,
    Ivan Zaporozhets
    Divine Dandelion? Online Publishing Service
    http://divinedandelion.blogspot.com/



  • 4.  Re: [docbook-apps] RELAX NG vs DTD: Sad Statistics

    Posted 06-03-2012 05:02
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    On 06/02/2012 06:34 PM, Divine Dandelion? wrote:
    > 2. Processing namespaced documents with docbook-xsl has some
    > limitations. (I could overestimate this fact, however. If
    > limitations, as you wrote, only applied to some edge cases, it may
    > still not force to switch to docbook-xsl-ns.) 3. Thus, it make
    > sense to use docbook-xsl-ns with such documents.
    >
    > That explains my "RELAX NG <== namespace <== docbook-xsl-ns"
    > association.
    >
    > On the other hand, DTD documents don't require to be namespaced -
    > therefore, to be processed with docbook-xsl-ns as well. Even so,
    > it would only reduced the percentage of RELAX NG oriented users.
    >
    > ---
    >
    > And I really didn't take into account oXygen / XML Mind users. You
    > are completely right, It may significally change the statistics,

    ...

    Also, I've been in a situation where I had elaborate customization
    layers that pre-date DocBook 5.x. It was easy to migrate our documents
    to DocBook 5, but migrating the customization layers was not something
    we had time or needed to do.

    Working with RelaxNG is much more pleasant than DTDs and being able to
    embed schematron rules in as well allows you to catch a much wider
    range of errors.

    Finally, some people using DocBook 5.x may be using the xslt 2.0
    stylesheets.

    David
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