RE: [dita-fa-edboard] History of DITA and modular documentation

["Carol Geyer" <carol.geyer@oasis-open.org>]

Bob,
Please keep in mind that this is a publicly archived mailing list created for
the Editorial Board's use in discussing matters directly related to the DITA
XML.org site. 

If you'd like to contact members of the Editorial Board directly, their email
addresses are linked from http://dita.xml.org/editorial-board/.

EdBoard members,
If you would like to respond to Bob, please do so offline.

Thanks,
Carol 


-----Original Message-----
From: Bob Doyle [mailto:bobdoyle@skybuilders.com] 
Sent: Wednesday, May 02, 2007 1:57 PM
To: DITA Editorial Board
Subject: [dita-fa-edboard] History of DITA and modular documentation

Hi all,

I am wondering if some of you can help me with a history of modular
documentation in general and DITA in particular.

Among other things, I would like to respond in a column to some negative
remarks made by Jon Bosak in his closing keynote for the recent XML 2006
conference in Boston. 
http://2006.xmlconference.org/proceedings/162/presentation.html

Jon said 


"Another ancient subject that seems to be popping up again is the idea of
modular document creation. This is one of those concepts that comes through
about once a decade, seduces all the writing managers with the prospect of
greater efficiency, takes over entire writing departments for a couple of
years, and then falls out of favor as people finally realize that document
reuse is not a solvable problem in document delivery but rather an intractable
problem in document writing - which is, how to retain any sense of logical
connection between pieces of information while writing as if your target
audience consisted entirely of people afflicted with ADD.

"I could go on at length about this, but instead I'll simply leave you with the
observation that my personal love affair with modular documentation occurred in
1978 and that I haven't seen a thing since then that would change the
conclusions I reached about it almost thirty years ago. This is not to say that
I'm trying to discourage the technical writing community whence I came from
their enthusiasm for the modular authoring technology du jour, since engagement
in such efforts is virtually guaranteed to buy tech writers a few years in
which they can act like software engineers and present themselves as engaged in
cutting-edge informational technology development rather than plain old
technical writing. That strategy has worked great for some of us."

I think I have reasons why DITA is different, but wish I had more details on
the failures Jon has seen over the years. Can we explain why DITA is not just
the modular documentation du jour?

I also hope to give a clear account of why DITA has three primary information
types. I trace them to my experience with documentation for Apple Macintosh,
but it may have an earlier origin?  As I write (speculating)  in an upcoming
article for STC Intercom 


Experienced writers will recognize the three information types - concepts,
tasks, and reference - as the three great user manuals of the golden age of
software, when you did read them in order. Apple called them Learning X, Using
X and the X Reference. My first tech docs were the user manuals for my
MacPublisher, which shipped in the year of the Mac, in English, French, German,
and Italian. To this day, many O'Reilly books follow the triad of Learning X,
Programming X, and X - the Definitive Reference. Minimalism has moved the
primary documentation focus to the practical "how-to" kind of knowledge we
discover by user and task analysis. Today's impatient users are not so
interested in learning the theory and overview, they want the instant
gratification of problem solutions.

Who at IBM (if anyone takes credit) named it Darwin? How clearly did it borrow
from Object-Oriented Programming, etc.?

When they chose Information Typing, was there awareness of Information
Mapping's decades of work? 

Did the DITA Architects overlap with John Carroll and his Minimalism team at
IBM?

Thanks in advance for any pointers, to people or documents - modular or
traditional.

Cheers,

-- 
Bob Doyle
Editor In Chief, CMS Review - http://www.cmsreview.com
Former Technology Advisor, CM Pros -
http://www.cmprofessionals.org/membership/cm-profiles/bob-doyle
<http://www.cmprofessionals.org/membership/cm-profiles/bob-doyle> 
Contributing Editor, EContent Magazine - 
http://www.econtentmag.com/About/AboutAuthor.aspx?AuthorID=155 
President and CEO, skyBuilders - http://www.skybuilders.com
77 Huron Avenue
Cambridge, MA 02138
Tel: +1 617-876-5676   Skype:bobdoyle