Re: [dita] Policy Decision: Loose or Not

["W. Eliot Kimber" <ekimber@innodata-isogen.com>]

Michael Priestley wrote:

> If we want to ditch normative nesting for one, we should ditch it for 
> both. Otherwise I don't see how we can say concept must allow nesting of 
> task in ditabase.dtd, and that's normative, but it can disallow it in 
> concept.dtd, and that's not.

I think you're misunderstanding the implications of the content models 
as shipped: they don't say you *must* do (as in "must allow all topic 
types to nest"), they say what you *can* do, from the point of what is 
allowed *for specializations*.

That is, the existence of the value for info-types as declared in the 
ditabase.dtd says "it is, as far as the standard is concerned, OK to 
nest any type within any other type". But it does not say "you must 
allow any type to nest within any other type".

Note that using ditabase.dtd as my specialization or configuration base, 
I can implement exactly the same constraints that the task-specific 
shell DTDs impose.

Or said another way, the purpose of the normative part of the 
specification is to define the *minimal set of required constraints* 
needed to make all possible DITA elements sensible and interchangable. 
Anything else we might choose to provide that is more constraining can 
only be a non-normative example or opinion about best practice.

Cheers,

E.

-- 
W. Eliot Kimber
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