Well, I do think we have too many packages
– all of these make the decisions for new users even more confusing than
just downloading one package. It won’t be clear to newcomers what
they’re getting or not getting if they aren’t already experts
and/or consultants. What packages are the editor and CMS vendors going to
provide to their customers? How will they implement any or all of them?
Aren’t we increasing the cost of entry and discouraging newcomers by
making the choices too complex?
Committee members casually talk about
creating new local shells but most of the people I know who are implementing
DITA aren’t capable of doing any of that. Does the new packaging not
require a significantly increased level of expertise to begin than we have had
before?
If this packaging was intended to make
adoption easier, I feel we’ve gotten far away from that goal. We’re
making adoption more complex instead.
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
joannhackos Skype
www.comtech-serv.com
Here is another version of the DITA 1.2
packaging proposal updated based on comments and suggestions received during
today’s DITA TC call and subsequent e-mail to the DITA TC list. Changes
from the previous draft are highlighted in blue.
I’m sure this will be discussed
again on next week’s DITA TC call. And comments and suggestions by e-mail to
the list or directly to me (jogden@ptc.com), Robert (robander@us.ibm.com),
and Michael (mpriestlo@ca.ibm.com) are welcome.
Questions:
I.
Should the Learning and Training topics and ditabase doctype shells include
the software, ui, and programming domains? John thinks they should, but
will check with the LTC subcommittee.
This issue is settled until we hear back from the LTC subcommittee.
II.
Do we want a Learning and Training map doctype shell that is based on
bookmap? John said yes.
This issue is settled, we just need to do the work.
III.
Is it nuts to include so many variations of Ditabase doctype shells? Do
we want a ditabase in each package? Should we leave this up to the
sub-committees?
We
agreed to include just one ditabase as part of the Technical Content package.
If the Learning and Training Content or the Machine Industry sub-committees
want ditabases to be included as part of their packages, they can request that.
We’ll assume that we don’t want or need the additional ditabases
for these two packages unless someone speaks up.
IV.
Should we include the approved Best Practice documents as an informative
part of the core package? Should we combine the existing best practice
documents into a single document?
We
agreed to include the Best Practice documents in the documentation package as
individual documents.
V.
Which map document type shells should include the Delayed Resolution
domain? Basic map? Technical Content Map? Bookmap? Leaning Map?
We
agreed to include the Delayed Resolution domain in all map doctype shells
unless a sub-committee explicitly asks for the domain to be omitted for map
doctype shells included in their package. No explicit requests made yet, but
its early.
V.
We have a constrained task doctype shell as part of the Technical
Content Package. Do we need to include an unconstrained task? If so, in
which package? Or is the Machine Industry Task an unconstrained task that
can serve this role?
The
Technical Content package will include a constrained task doctype shell. The
Machine Industry package will include a differently constrained task doctype
shell. The DITA 1.2 release will not include a completely unconstrained task
doctype shell, but individuals and organizations are free to create one if they
wish.
VII.
Notice that the Delayed Resolution domain is included in the core
package, that it is not included in any doctype shells. Is this OK?
This is
OK.
VIII.
Notice that the xNAL domain is included in the core package, but it is
only included in the Bookmap doctype shell.
We agreed
to separate out the documentation for the xNAL package into its own
Architecture and Language Reference document, to include this document and
other xNAL files in the core package, and to create separate xNAL directories
for DTDs and XSDs within the core package.
IX.
There was a suggestion that we have an additional package that would
contain the combined documentation and none of the DTD, XSD, and related files.
This is not included in the above proposal, but could be if members of the TC
think it would be useful.
We
didn’t get to this item during today’s discussion, but while
discussing other items the feeling seemed to be that we should have a separate
combined documentation package and this would be the place to put the Best Practice
documents together with all of the documents from the other packages.
X.
We will include the DITA source, PDF, and chunked HTML output. Do we
want to include HTML Help (chm) and unchunked HTML output as well?
We
didn’t talk about this during today’s call, but I suggest that we
include PDF output for the documents in each of the packages and that we
include the DITA source, PDF, unchunked html, chunked html, and HTML Help
output in the documentation package.
XI.
Are seven or eight packages too many (six individual, one combined, and
possibly a combined documentation package)?
We
didn’t talk about this during today’s call, but so far at least no
one has expressed concerns about the number of packages.
XII.
Questions about how to coordinate Robert’s proposed changes to the
organization of the DITA Language Reference documents with the packaging
proposal were raised during the 8 April DITA TC call.
I’m
no longer sure what the issue was here. Robert is going forward to implement (a
prototype) of his suggested approach. I suggest that we came back and revisit
this after that work is done.
XIII.
There is a question about the name for what is labeled the
“core” package above. Is “core” OK or would
“base”, “common”, or something else be better.
We
didn’t talk about this during today’s call. In a e-mail exchange
with Robert and Michael I said I didn’t like “common” since
we already have common files (common to topics and map) and so having a package
named common might lead to “common common files” which would be
confusing. I think we are going with “core” for now. If
someone has strong feelings about this, they should speak up and hopefully
offer suggestions for a new/better name.
XIV.
There are questions about the right place to put the xNAL and Hazard
Statement domains that we need to sort out.
We
talked about this indirectly. We seem to be leaning toward putting the
xNAL and Hazard Statement domains in the core package, but with a separate
document to describe xNAL. The xNAL domain will be used from the bookmap
doctype shell. The Hazard Statement domain will be used from several
doctype shells in several packages.
XV.
Is Technical Content a good name for item #2 above? Would
Technical Publications be better? Something else?
The view
was expressed that Technical Content isn’t a good name. No suggestions
for an alternative so far. Not sure if Technical Publications or TechPubs
is better or not. Probably not. We’ll probably stick with Technical
Content until someone suggests an alternative.
XVI.
Not sure we have agreement on item xii below.
General comments:
- The proposal is to organize the DITA 1.2 specification into
a set of six individual
packages plus a documentation
package plus a combined package as outlined below.
- All packages include both DTD and XSD doctype shells
and modules.
- All packages include catalog files (both XML and text).
- All packages include PDF output
for the documentation specific to that package. The
documentation package includes DITA source, PDF, chunked HTML
output, and HTML Help (chm) and unchunked HTML output. The combined
package
includes everything.
- Packages will contain a mix of normative and
informative (non-normative) materials.
- Directories and files will be organized and named so
that they can be combined and
installed into the same directories without conflict.
- Except for the
documentation and the combined package, individual packages
won’t duplicate
the content from other packages.
- The Core Package can be used by itself.
- Each of the individual non-core packages requires the
Core package and may
require other packages.
- The Core Package plus the Technical Content Package
gives what
is available in DITA 1.1 without bookmap and with the addition of
the Hazard
Statement domain, the Delayed
Resolution domain, and the Basic Topic
and Basic Map document type shells.
- The written specifications, references, and guidelines
are being divided into
smaller independent documents to make them more manageable, to allow
them to be maintained somewhat independently, to allow readers to
avoid sections that they may not need or may not be interested in, and to
make
it easier to add more structural and domain specializations in the future.
- The DITA TC and eventually OASIS will be asked to
approve the specifications,
DTDs, XSDs, modules, and related files in the combined package.
1) Core Package
a) DITA 1.2 Core
Architectural Specification (introduction, topic, map, and
metadata markup, processing including
delayed resolution,
specialization including constraints).
b) DITA 1.2
Core Language Reference (map, topic, metadata including
delayed resolution, map group domain).
c) DITA 1.2
Utility Domain Specializations Architecture and Language
Reference (utilities, highlighting, and hazard statement domains).
c.1) DITA 1.2 xNAL Domain Specializations Architecture and Language
Reference.
d) DITA 1.2
Processing Guidelines and Examples (non-normative).
e) Basic Topic
document type shell (topic type, no domains).
f)
Topic type modules.
g) Topic domain
specialization modules for the indexing, utilities,
highlighting, and hazard statement domains.
h) Basic Map
document type shell (only map type plus the map group domain).
i)
Map modules.
j)
Map Group domain specialization modules.
k) Delayed
Resolution domain specialization modules.
l)
xNAL domain specialization modules.
n) ditaval
document type.
2) Technical Content Package
a) DITA 1.2
Technical Content Architecture and Language
Reference (concept, task, reference, glossary).
b) DITA 1.2
Software, Programming, and User
Interface Domains
Specializations Architecture and Language Reference.
c) Topic
document type shell (topic plus core topic domains plus the
software, programming, and UI domains).
d) Concept
document type shell (concept plus core topic domains plus
the software, programming, and UI domains).
e) Glossary
document type shell (glossentry plus core topic domains plus
the software, programming, and UI domains).
f)
Reference document type shell (reference plus core topic domains plus
the software, programming, and UI domains).
g) Task
document type shell (constrained task plus core topic domains plus the
software, programming, and UI domains).
h) concept,
glossary, reference, and task specialization modules.
i)
Software, programming, and UI domain specialization modules.
j)
Map document type shell (map plus map group, delayed resolution, and indexing domains).
k) Technical
Content Ditabase doctype shell (topic, concept, glossentry,
reference, constrained task plus the core topic domains plus the software,
programming, and UI domains).
3) Book Package
a) DITA 1.2
Book Architecture and Language Reference (bookmap).
b) Bookmap
document type shell (bookmap plus map group, indexing,
delayed resolution, and
xNAL domains).
c) Bookmap
specialization modules.
4) Learning and Training Content Package
a) DITA 1.2
Learning and Training Content Architecture and Language Reference.
b) Doctype
shells for all of the Learning and Training topic
specializations except learningBase, includes the core topic, software,
programming, UI, Learning topic, and Learning Metadata domains.
c) Learning and
Training topic, map, and metadata domains.
d) Learning and
Training map doctype shell (map plus the map group,
delayed resolution, Learning Map,
Learning Metadata, and Learning topic domains).
e) Learning and
Training bookmap doctype shell (bookmap plus the
map group, delayed resolution,
Learning Map and Learning
Metadata domains).
f)
Learning and Training map domain specialization modules.
5) Machine Industry Package
a) DITA 1.2 Machine
Industry Architecture and Language Reference.
b) Machine
Industry Task doctype shell (constrained task plus the
core topic and Machine Industry domain specializations).
c) Machine
Industry domain specialization modules.
6) Semantic Linking, Controlled Values, and Taxonomies Package
a) DITA 1.2
Semantic Linking, Controlled Values, and Taxonomies
Architecture and Language Reference.
b) Subject
Schema Map document type shell (need
details here).
c) Subject
Schema Map modules.
d) Classification
Map document type shell (need details
here).
e) Classification
domain specialization modules.
7) Documentation Package
a) The DITA source plus PDF, chunked HTML, unchunked HTML, and
HTML Help output for all of the Architecture, Language Reference,
Guideline, and Example documents from the other packages.
b) The source and all outputs for all of the approved
Best Practice
documents as individual documents.
8) Combined Package
a) All of the
above in one combined package.