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Subject: RE: [dita] Keywords in DITA
I wonder if Bruce could provide an example of the
distinction between keyword as description and keyword as content. I'm not
certain I understand how they are being distinguished from this
explanation.
JoAnn
JoAnn T. Hackos, PhD
President
Comtech Services,
Inc.
710 Kipling Street, Suite 400
Denver, CO 80215
303-232-7586
joann.hackos@comtech-serv.com
http://www.comtech-serv.com
A
future release of the architecture should provide language to
distinguish between two specializations of the archetype: a description
(keyword-as-description) and an object (keyword-of-content). This would provide
a clear distinction that would cue authors and processing about the difference
in purpose.
Not
all field names or function names make good search terms, so including all such
identifiers among the candidate targets for search impairs the
specificity that users want when they search. This means there is a benefit to
being able to mark up identifiers for special presentation in output
(keyword-of-content) without including them among search
terms.
Indexterm is really a special case of
keyword-as-description. Keyword-as-description could be permitted in content to
permit authors to identify text that is to be used as a search target. It is
often convenient to mark up identifying text on first
occurrence.
The clash comes when an author wants both usages
simultaneously: keyword-as-description to indicate a search target and
keyword-of-content because the identifier is a special identifier in the
content. The keyword-of-content usage must take precedence. In order to
accomodate the keyword-as-description usage, the author could choose to write
some descriptive text to hold the keyword-as-description usage, or else place a
keyword-as-description entry in a metadata context. Although it is tempting to
use the unspecialized markup in these cases, there is still the question of
whether to trigger an index entry, so a third specialization of the archetype
(keyword-desc-and-content) may be
needed.
Best wishes,
Bruce
Esrig
I buy it in the strict sense, Paul, but life can be so darned non-linear.
How about this scenario:
As a content owner, I created a domain for
marking up both widgettype and widgetname words in my product descriptions,
both specialized from keyword. Authors have generally used these elements to
tag names and types throughout the content. Later, I run a consolidation tool
against my content to retrieve all elements based on keyword, create a single
copy of each unique element/value, and put these into the keywords metadata of
the topic as a pre-processed pool that I intend to use as search keys. Domain
substitution means that the keywords element can contain keyword as well as
the elements specialized from it--widgetname and widgettype. Although your
definitions might differentiate the name as being "API-like" and the type as
metadata, yet both are here, based on the same element , in both content and
metadata contexts. From my point of view as a user, there is no need for too
fine-grained a definitional distinction because my domain specialization and
my subsequent use of the elements in both contexts effectively makes the
distinction moot--the specialized elements are describing my product
semantically and are providing the consistent search/relevance behavior I
desired.
My real world experience bets that most authors will be
inconsistent about what they mark up as keyword in the metadata vs in the
content. Thus jaded, I'm back to the suggestion of keeping the description
high level. keyword is just an archetype--the significant distinctions come
when it is specialized to clearly indicate what it is
for.
Regards,
--
Don Day <dond@us.ibm.com>
Chair, OASIS
DITA Technical Committee
IBM Lead DITA Architect
11501 Burnet Rd., MS
9037D018, Austin TX 78758
Ph. 512-838-8550 (T/L 678-8550)
"Where is
the wisdom we have lost in knowledge?
Where is the knowledge we have lost
in information?"
--T.S. Eliot
![Inactive hide details for "Paul Prescod" <<a href=]()
paul.prescod@blastradius.com>" src="gif00057.gif" width="16">"Paul Prescod"
<paul.prescod@blastradius.com>
Okay, an emerging consensus seems to be that
<keyword> in <keywords> means <keyword> in the HTML/Docbook
sense.
http://www.docbook.org/tdg/en/html/keyword.html . It is typically hidden from the user as metadata
and embedded in the HTML meta tag.
<keyword> in other contexts is more like a word
from an API or language.
Should we just document it that way? If so, I can suggest some
wordings.
Paul Prescod
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