RE: [dita-adoption] DITA backlash

["Rodolfo M. Raya" <rmraya@maxprograms.com>]

Hi David,

Your comments are valid, DITA can be confusing for a starter. It happened to
me, so I decided to buy a book and ask for help. Both approaches were
useful.

There are good books for learning DITA. IMHO, That should be the first thing
to look for when starting.

Regards,
Rodolfo
--
Rodolfo M. Raya       rmraya@maxprograms.com
Maxprograms       http://www.maxprograms.com

> -----Original Message-----
> From: dita-adoption@lists.oasis-open.org
[mailto:dita-adoption@lists.oasis-
> open.org] On Behalf Of David J. B. Hollis
> Sent: Wednesday, August 29, 2012 12:58 PM
> To: DITA Adoption TC
> Subject: Re: [dita-adoption] DITA backlash
> 
> Hi All,
> 
> OK, so someone is new to DITA. They have a basic understanding of topics,
> and the DITA structure. They know their company's products and customers
> well, and know what topics are required. So they have an idea of the
> concepts, tasks and supporting reference material.
> 
> Great!
> 
> Then they find that they need to organise those topics into a hierarchy. A
> series of main and subtitles, chapter headings and sub headings.
> 
> They're then faced with a dilemna:
> 
> 1. A whole bunch of 'silly' single paragraph, perhaps, topics that are
mainly
> there to carry a title.
> 
> 2. Introducing topicheads with navtitles and possibly shortdesc into the
map.
> 
> The former seems to be a waste of a topic and bumps up the file count.
> The latter means putting content into the map, which somehow seems to be
> wrong, or at least peculiar. It would probably be difficult to reuse that
> content, if that were required.
> 
> First, what would be 'DITA best practice'?
> 
> Second, is there anything to guide a newbie? A simple primer on topics, or
> the DITA architecture? Some best practice examples?
> 
> The obvious starting point is the Toolkit. I've just looked at the samples
> folder. There are two overview topics that have no more than a title and
> shortdesc in them, used in hierarchy.ditamap. Examples of 1.
> above.
> 
> Apologies if I seem to be stirring. That is most definitley not the
intention. I'm
> just trying to read between the lines, and trying to see if there is a
possible
> underlying issue that needs to be addressed.
> 
> I might also have completely missed the point, as I tend to work with PDFs
> rather than HTML. If so, many apologies.
> 
> HTH,
> David
> 
> 
> > I hate to say it, but I have long suspected that many implementers of
> > DITA don't know what they're doing when it comes to information
> > architectures and output shaping. Myself, I've yet to work on a DITA
> > project that did not output multiple topic types in HTML. Why not?
> > <dita> wrappers and dita maps with chunking are obvious mechanisms.
> >
> > Yet, I have to agree with the poster in that I've also seen some truly
> > bizarre "architectures" using DITA.
> >
> > DITA is like a kitchen knife. You can use a chef's knife to create a
> > culinary masterpiece or you can use to commit murder. Unfortunately,
> > murder is easier.
> >
> > Troy
> >
> > -----Original Message-----
> > From: Kristen James Eberlein [mailto:kris@eberleinconsulting.com]
> > Sent: Monday, August 27, 2012 3:21 PM
> > To: dita-adoption@lists.oasis-open.org
> > Subject: [dita-adoption] DITA backlash
> >
> > http://focusonreaders.blogspot.ca/2012/07/case-study-dita-topic-archit
> > ecture.html
> >
> > Joann, you should recognize this author as someone who garnered quite
> > a lot of attention on LinkedIn recently ...
> >
> > --
> > Best,
> >
> > Kris
> >
> > Kristen James Eberlein
> > Principal consultant, Eberlein Consulting Co-chair, OASIS DITA
> > Technical Committee Charter member, OASIS DITA Adoption Committee
> > www.eberleinconsulting.com
> > +1 919 682-2290; kriseberlein (skype)
> 
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