Re: Publishing tool ideas for W3C editors

At 07:27 PM 7/21/00 -0400, Ian Jacobs wrote:
>Hello,
>
>I'm glad to see that there's interest in the project
>described below. I propose the following:
>
>1) The XML and DOM groups converge on a common DTD for
>    their specs (at least a common core). Eve has said that
>    she has little time at the moment but is interested. Philippe,
>    I propose that you and Eve coordinate on this.

I had little time last week, but my plan is actually to devote real time to 
this sort of activity in the coming couple of months.

>2) Once we have that core format, we figure out how to map
>    xhtml to it with an xslt style sheet. I suspect that
>    some of the transformations will be quite lightweight
>    (e.g., transform the first H1 of the document into the
>    title element of the common format). We obviously need
>    to document the conventions, ensure that available templates
>    conform to them, etc.

While I can see the value in trying to get people to use "structured" XHTML 
that readily up-converts to XMLspec, I would also try to get people 
interested in using XMLspec directly.  It's not hard, and there are lots of 
tools out there to help people do it correctly.  The fact is that 
specifications have a specific "shape"/structure, and XHTML is too loose 
for it.  For specs iwth frequent publication schedules, it may be 
unreasonable to expect people to up-convert and hand-tweak every time.

>    David Carlisle has volunteered some time in a few weeks and
>    I would be happy to participate in that discussion. I'm happy
>    to schedule a phone meeting, say the week of 14 August. For
>    example, 15 August at 2pm ET.

This sounds great; I'll keep that time open.

         Eve
--
Eve Maler                                    +1 781 442 3190
Sun Microsystems XML Technology Center    elm @ east.sun.com

Received on Monday, 24 July 2000 10:54:12 UTC