Is your suggestion that
metadata is used for processing and content is used for reading? To
put it in more extreme terms, that processing is the only appropriate use of
metadata and reading is the only appropriate use of
content?
From: Erik Hennum [mailto:]
Sent: Wednesday, September 02, 2009 3:06 PM
To:
ekimber
Cc: dita
Subject: Re: [dita] History Question: Why
does <data> not include <cite>?
Hi, Eliot:
I'm a little unclear -- is the entire quote the value of
the data property?
If so, I'm wondering whether this use case might
better to model as a secondary flow (similar to DocBook <sidebar>)
that's associated with the topic -- maybe specializing note, section, or
subtopic -- especially given your remarks about the limits on the markup
precision?
That is, maybe there's a distinction between metadata and
secondary flows depending on whether the primary use is processing or reading?
To try to impose some clarity on the gray area between data structures and
documents.
Other perspectives?
Erik
Hennum
ekimber
<> wrote on 09/02/2009 10:53:22 AM:
> Re:
[dita] History Question: Why does <data> not include
<cite>?
>
> One use case I have is for a magazine
article that is either an excerpt from
> or related to another
publication, what this publisher calls a "disclaimer",
> e.g.:
>
> "World-Class Selling: New Sales Competencies‹by Brian Lambert, Tim
Ohai, and
> Eric Kerkhoff‹is available from XXXX Press for $299 ($199
for XXXX members)
> and includes the entire competency dictionary and
seven tools for use in
> your organization. To learn more, please
visit
> www.salestrainingdrivers.org/worldclass. For more information on
the
> Competency Model, email "
>
> This
information is relating the the publication <cite>World-Class
Selling:
> New Sales Competencies</cite> to the article and also
providing additional
> information.
>
> This is metadata
for the article as a whole, not metadata for a specific
> component of
the article content.
>
> In a print presentation of the article
this information is presented after
> the main body of the article
(including any nested topics) and is clearly
> not part of the main flow
of the article content (that is, it doesn't
> contribute directly to the
narrative of the article itself).
>
> In an HTML presentation,
this information would either not be presented at
> all or provided in
some other out-of-line way.
>
> ... There is also the issue
of simplicity and directness of
> implementation vs. require a high
degree of sophistication of data
> structuring just to achieve a simple
presentation requirement (e.g.,
> rendering the disclaimer statement
after the presentation of the article
> itself).
>
> For
example, in the case of this disclaimer, I could break it down into
its
> individual pieces and capture each of those as discrete
<data> elements and
> then implement processing to reconstitute
them into the original narrative
> paragraph. But that level of expense
and complexity is entirely unjustified
> by the actual value of the
metadata--the individual pieces would almost
> never be useful
individually, so it's just adding cost in this case,
> especially when
you consider that the content will almost certainly not be
> authored as
DITA XML initially.
