RE: [dita-machine-industry] Product life-cycle table - generic remark

["Keld Jellesen" <keld.jellesen@advice2u.dk>]

See my comments below

> -----Original Message-----
> From: jang@jang.nl [mailto:jang@jang.nl]
> Sent: 19. januar 2010 14:26
> To: dita-machine-industry@lists.oasis-open.org
> Subject: [dita-machine-industry] Product life-cycle table - generic
> remark
> 
> I am sending this before today's meeting so that people can think about
> it and be prepared for the discussion.
> 
> I think we are putting too much energy into defining all kinds of
> DOCUMENT TYPES, where we should be concentrating on INFORMATION TYPES
> and the elements required to express those information types in
> whatever document the user might think of. DITA is about reusability
> and about small pieces of content that can be reused virtually
> anywhere. DITA is NOT about documents, although these CAN be made with
> DITA components.
[KJE:] I cannot agree. In reality we don't talk about documents, manuals, etc. We shall talk about information objects. Documents and manuals are only container on how we tend to distribute contents to the end-user so it make sense to him/her. Another distribution term could also be cards for instance for jobcards which is used in aviation, but a jobcard is something combined from many sources.

> 
> The danger in concentrating on documents and all kinds of manual types
> too much is that we define too many elements for too many potential
> types of use cases. I would like us to concentrate on information types
> and define the required types in such a way that users can apply them
> in as many different ways as they can think of. I am very much in favor
> of the minimalism that was once the basis for DITA.
[KJE:] YES
> 
> Against this background, I would remove some columns from the table and
> rename others. The focus should be on the info type that is required in
> each life cycle stage, so I would rename Main Information to Info Types
> and simply list the types that will be needed in each cycle. If types
> appear in more than one cycle, that is not a problem. We should try to
> name them the same if possible.
> 
> The second column could be named "Use cases" and list possible
> documents that will be produced in the life cycle stage. A third column
> may be used for Comments.
> 
> This table is just a way to collect info types that are required. Once
> that work is done, we should create a new table that is called Info
> Types and lists the life cycles in which each info type will be used
> with some use cases (documents) and a lead. Having a lead per life
> cycle is OK for the collecting phase, but the current table is not a
> good starting point for actual proposals, as these should be about
> information types, not about final documents.
> 
> I hope everyone will have a few minutes to think about this before we
> start the meeting. I will propose to put this on the agenda for today.
> If that does not work out, I will propose to put it on the agenda of
> the next meeting. I think it is an important philosophical discussion
> we must have before embarking on actual 1.3 proposals definitions.
[KJE:] I need to think about this in more Detail but the overall idea sounds right...

/Keld
> 
> See (hear) you all soon
> 
> Jang