Re: Take out the DTD Reference [Was: Trip Report: IETF meeting of HTML WG ]

Earl Hood (ehood@imagine.convex.com)
Tue, 13 Dec 94 20:01:08 EST

> >
> >> 5. It was suggested by more than one person that the IESG may not accept
> >> the document if it includes the DTD reference, as this could be considered
> >> 18 pages of essentially redundant (albeit useful) material.
> >
> >No, it was suggested that the longer it was, the longer it would take
> >to process.
>
> I'm sure there are ways to condense the information to fewer than 18
> pages, at least in the postscript version.

I figure a alphabetical list of all elements with one line descriptions
can be used. This allows a quick reference for all elements but avoids
much duplicate information in the rest of the spec. Also,
cross-references could be added to where the element is described in
the spec (eg. page number/section number).

> Perhaps Earl Hood's dtd2html tools could be used to construct a more
> concise and more accurate reference for the DTD.

As part of the spec or as an external document? I believe
<URL:http://www.oac.uci.edu/indiv/ehood/perlSGML/examples/html2.0/DTD-HOME.html>
is a nice reference (biased opinion :-), but the document is quite
large. dtd2html can generate a quick-reference document, but I'm
unclear on what layout is desired. Plus, dtd2html generates only HTML
and not PostScript, or whatever is the native markup for the
specification.

> Of course the minimalist in me says "take it out. It's fluff. This is
> a spec, not a tutorial or user's guide."

Agreed.

--ewh