DocBook Compare, but not as you know it!
Since 2010, our customers have used DeltaXML DocBook Compare to manage change in their DocBook content. While we’ve seen the popularity of the DocBook grammar fluctuate up and down over the years, DocBook Compare has consistently been the go-to solution for finding and publishing change in DocBook content. In recent releases, we’ve introduced some new features as a response to specific customer requests, such as improved table comparison and the ability to highlight MathML changes. We rely on customer feedback to make sure we’re adding features that will be useful to the specific use cases that our users have, which is why our latest major version, 9.0, features a brand new REST API for DocBook comparison.
How will a REST API help me?
In the past, DocBook Compare was accessed using our Java API (as well as our .net API – more on that later), which is convenient if you’re a Java developer but not so helpful otherwise. Several customers have made it clear that it would be much easier to include DocBook Compare in their environment if only they could access it from fill in your favourite programming language here.
Using a REST service that can be accessed from any language on any machine and in any environment is the most effective way to cover the most languages. And we’ve done just that! Combined with our concurrent operation licensing, DocBook Compare 9.0 allows for the deployment of a self-contained REST service that scales with your environment. You can use the REST API to access DocBook Compare functionality regardless of whether you’re developing in Java, C#, PHP, or the latest niche language. Furthermore, it can be deployed on a physical server, a laptop, or a microservice, and scaled to your deployment needs.
If you’re an existing customer and need help or advice on getting started, or you want to talk to someone about converting your existing license into a REST API license, contact our customer service team now.
What about the Java API?
For those who like using the Java API, don’t worry, it isn’t going anywhere! DocBook Compare is still written in Java and the API will be available as before. The REST API is written as a layer on top of the Java API and in fact still needs a JVM to run the REST service. The only API change that we are making in this release is to remove the .net API. As you may know, the third-party technology we were using to develop the .net release came to the end of life some time ago, the world has moved on, and your feedback tells us you need a REST service. We made the decision to remove the .net distribution entirely and encourage our .net users to make use of the REST API instead. Not only do you get the advantages of flexible deployment but you’ll also see performance improvements compared to the previous .net release.
What’s next?
DocBook Compare continues to improve and we have a few exciting features coming up later this year. On top of the recent CALS table improvements, we’ll be improving the comparison results from HTML tables as well as adding SVG image comparison to DocBook Compare. While you wait for those releases why not take advantage of the updated REST API now by upgrading to version 9.0? Try an evaluation copy of DeltaXML on our website or if you’re already a customer download the latest version from MyDelta.
