Re: DOCBOOK: DocBook-XML and conditional sections

["Fred L. Drake, Jr." <fdrake at acm dot org>]

Adam Turoff writes:
 > That's a valid point, but I believe this is a different problem.
...
 > What I think Stephane is trying to do is have one document that
 > describes two versions of the same product.  Much of the text is
 > shared between the two versions in use.  

  I understand the difference, actually; I have a similar issue with
the Python documentation.  I am using a separate CVS branch to
maintain the documentation for the last released version of Python,
and another that documents the bleeding edge of development.  The
bleeding edge version will go without the fixes on the other branch
until a new release of Python is close, at which point I'll merge the
branch changes back in.
  Of course, I have no requirement to maintain the 1.5.2 documents
once the next Python release is out.  Appearantly, Stephane (and
anyone providing a commercial product) does have to deal with multiple 
versions concurrently deployed.

 > The CVS solution would require frequent merging between the v2.1 
 > and v2.2 branches, while throwing revision="" attributes where 
 > appropriate allows both documents to share the common bits.  That
 > keeps the one document on a single CVS branch, keeping the
 > ability to build documentation for v2.1 and v2.2 concurrently.

  Depends on how often the changes are expect to overlap (causing
possible conflicts in the merge), and how often documentation updates
are provided to the end users.  You're right:  this can be a real
problem.

 > PS: How many hours until your book hits the shelves, Norm?  :-)

  Too many; I just hope pre-ordering does some good!  Trying to figure 
it out from the element reference is just plain painful for the
time-challenged (that's everyone, right?).

  -Fred

--
Fred L. Drake, Jr.	     <fdrake@acm.org>
Corporation for National Research Initiatives