Re: Tags (searching)

[Gary Preckshot <garrell@inreach.com>]

Greg Ferguson wrote:

> 
> Once AGAIN I want to re-interate...
> 
> 1) There is a tag/field/structured search capability that is
near
>    completion -- the OMF metadata framework.
> 
>    Please see http://metalab.unc.edu/osrt/omf/
> 
> 2) One goal of the LDP *should be* to utilize this technology as
a
>    primary tag/field/structured search capability, in addition
>    to the "shotgun" full-text search.
> 
>    There is no sense to re-inventing the wheel if this provides
the
>    necessary capabilities and can be easily hooked into the LDP.
> 
> 3) I initially helped to populate the database with a set of
HOWTOs
>    and guides which I filtered to XML "records" from their
native
>    linuxdoc. This filter needs some work, needs to be exapnded
to
>    use DocBOok, but the concept is in place and will work!
> 
>    I intend to continue with this work/effort, unless I hear
otherwise
>    from the LDP.
> 

If we weren't talking about it, you wouldn't have
been able to post the above. If you'd been more
talkative about what you were doing, we wouldn't
be talking about what we're talking about. It must
be evident that a whole lot of folks have no idea
what's going on behind closed doors, or somebody
besides yourself would have mentioned it.

> I also tend to believe that setting up "tag sets" is far too
limiting
> and taking the inherent power of the SGML away from the author.



If we weren't talking about it, you wouldn't have
been able to post the above. If you'd been more
talkative about what you were doing, we wouldn't
be talking about what we're talking about. It must
be evident that a whole lot of folks have no idea
what's going on behind closed doors, or somebody
besides yourself would have mentioned it.

> I also tend to believe that setting up "tag sets" is far too
limiting
> and taking the inherent power of the SGML away from the author.

SGML was designed specifically to limit authors.
DTDs prescribe a structure for documents and
DocBook is an exception - a general DTD - , where
the intention was to have corporate DTDs or
publisher DTDs that permitted the corporation or
publisher to format the document the way they
wanted after the author wrote it. So what
"inherent power" are you talking about?

> The DTD
> is already designed/constructed to allow for "tag sets",
dependant upon
> the top-level container tag chosen - <book> or <article>. Let's
> concentrate on the development of solid, robust templates and a
brief
> set of authoring rules/guidelines (such as those Poet mentioned
-
> no minimalization of tags, no use of deprecated tags, etc).
Getting
> into specific tag usage and/or customized tags leads us astray
from the
> standard...not a good thing to do.
> 

It doesn't lead us astray from using the standard.
It just delineates sets of tags that LDP is using
for specific purposes, and deprecates the use of
tags that give LDP tools problems or are going to
disappear from DocBook. DocBook is so big, the LDP
may want to restrict the use of some tags because
they don't contribute to the "look and feel" that
LDP wants in its howtos. After all, DocBook
Articles are not HOWTOs. DocBook was not written
specifically for howtos. It was written to
accommodate all sorts of documents up to, and
including, books. By using a subset of tags, LDP
retains standardization (what can be non-standard
about using standard tags as defined by the
standard?). By additionally defining a set of tags
that set off search fields, LDP uses SGML in one
of the ways envisioned when the standard was
promulgated.

Gary


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