Re: [dita] My increasing concerns about LwDITA and template-based specialization

Michael, thanks for expanding on your vision for the
      template-based specialization mechanism. It does clarify your
      thinking to me.

    
The main problem I see, however, is that this vision (in more
      than the broadest details) exists primarily in your head. It has
      not been socialized to others in the Lightweight DITA subcommittee
      (or the DITA TC) nor has it been instantiated in any design
      documents. That makes it difficult/impossible to include it in a
      release.

    
Do you have any thoughts on how to remedy this? Do you have
      additional time to spend working on this?

    

    
I am interested in seeing a release of Lightweight DITA in the
      near future, definitely before DITA 2.0.

    

    
Best,

      Kris

      

      Kristen James Eberlein

      Chair, OASIS DITA Technical Committee

      Principal consultant, Eberlein Consulting

      www.eberleinconsulting.com

      +1 919 682-2290; kriseberlein (skype)

      

    

    
On 1/21/2017 10:33 PM, Michael
      Priestley wrote:

    

    Hi Kris,

      

      Here's my perspective:

      

      >I'm not sure that adding new attributes and
          elements
          in the spec in 

          >order to drive tool development is an appropriate thing to
          do.

        

      I think as long as the markup is semantic, this
          is
          not only appropriate but normal. You could argue that every
          element and
          attribute in full DITA was added to drive tool development, in
          the sense
          that none of that markup had any meaning or effect until it
          was turned
          into some kind of output by a tool. There are many examples of
          elements
          and attributes supporting specific tooling requirements, from
          the filtering
          attributes in DITA 1.0 to the assessment elements in the
          learning and training
          specialization.

      

      >I think it would 100% appropriate if
          someone wants
          to build and sell an 

          >application, and include with the application directions
          on how to
          

          >create an annotated XML file that can processed to get a
          monolithic
          DTD. 

          >Or have an Open Source project which produces a plug-in
          that oXygen
          will 

          >bundle with their application.

      

      And if they use specialized elements and
          attributes
          to do that annotation, then their annotations will not be
          portable across
          template generation tools. It really will be bound to one
          tool, instead
          of being a standard. This is perfectly appropriate, of course,
          but it's
          a different use case than having a standard that allows
          multiple tools
          to coexist and work on the same content set.

      

      >However, I truly don't see an argument for
          adding
          new elements and 

          >attributes to the specification in order to develop
          one-time artifacts
          

          >(the templates) that can be fed into tooling to
          autogenerate DTDs

      

      Maybe this is where our different
          interpretations
          start. I don't see these as one-time artifacts. Over time the
          goal is to
          have the same annotated template support multiple outputs,
          many of which
          could require ongoing updates and maintenance:

      

      - the documentation (update to address the
          requirements
          of new users, or just improve based on existing usage
          problems)

      - stylesheet overrides (for example to generate
          section
          titles - update to address changing editorial
          rules/requirements)

      - authoring templates (as with documentation,
          update
          to address requirements of new users etc.)

      

      In addition to those use cases, there is the
          (re)use
          of the template by other designs - the goal is to allow reuse
          of specialized
          elements through conref between templates, which will be
          simpler and more
          direct for users to work with and understand compared to our
          current full
          DITA modularization with multiple entity overrides.

      

      I don't know if this helps to convince you, but
          I
          hope that I've addressed some of the concerns you've
          identified here. 

      

        Michael Priestley, Senior Technical Staff Member (STSM)

        Enterprise Content Technology Strategist

        

      

      

      

      From:      
         Kristen James Eberlein
        <>

      To:      
         DITA TC
        <>

      Date:      
         01/19/2017 08:15 AM

      Subject:    
           [dita] My increasing
        concerns about LwDITA and template-based specialization

      Sent by:    
           <>

      

      

      

      I think we all would like to specialization
          easier
          to do. But ...

          

          I'm not sure that adding new attributes and elements in the
          spec in 

          order to drive tool development is an appropriate thing to do.

          

          I think it would 100% appropriate if someone wants to build
          and sell an
          

          application, and include with the application directions on
          how to 

          create an annotated XML file that can processed to get a
          monolithic DTD.
          

          Or have an Open Source project which produces a plug-in that
          oXygen will
          

          bundle with their application.

          

          However, I truly don't see an argument for adding new elements
          and 

          attributes to the specification in order to develop one-time
          artifacts
          

          (the templates) that can be fed into tooling to autogenerate
          DTDs

          

          I'm going to need a whole lot more convincing. It just seems
          wrong.

          

          

          -- 

          Best,

          Kris

          

          Kristen James Eberlein

          Chair, OASIS DITA Technical Committee

          Principal consultant, Eberlein Consulting

        www.eberleinconsulting.com

          +1 919 682-2290; kriseberlein (skype)

          

          

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