UPD Mail Archive: UPD> Comments on UPDF specification

UPD> Comments on UPDF specification

From: Alan Hlava (hlava@us.ibm.com)
Date: Mon Aug 12 2002 - 16:09:02 EDT

  • Next message: NorbertSchade@oaktech.com: "Re: UPD> Comments on UPDF specification"

    The following are some comments about the UPDF specification
    (Universal Printer Description Format, Version 0.83.1) document.

    I am new to UPDF, but perhaps this is a positive thing in that it will
    provide the perspective of someone coming to UPDF "cold" and
    only having what's written down in the spec to go by.

    * There is no table of contents and no index, making it impossible
    to use this as a reference document.
    * Heading levels are not numbered like they were in 0.81.3, making an
    already difficult-to-follow nesting structure (see the following point)
    now
    impossible-to-follow. There are not even page numbers in the current
    version!
    * It is very difficult to discern the nesting of the XML elements. You
    have to
    either flip back and find the list of sub-elements in the containing
    element
    (in 0.81.3 you could count the numbering level in the numeric header,
    which
    gets very difficult as the nest level deepens). I would suggest using
    heading numbers and indenting as well to make the nesting visually
    obvious.
    * Many elements merely list the attributes without any explanation. While
    the purpose of some can be deduced from the names, this is very
    imprecise in a standards document and opens it up for misunderstandings
    and incompatibilities between vendors.
    * "XML-DTD encoding of UPDF" section references a DTD file but the UPDF
    is actually defined via XML schema (XSD) files.

    Regards,

    Alan Hlava
    IBM Printing Systems Division
    hlava@us.ibm.com



    This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : Mon Aug 12 2002 - 16:09:09 EDT