FW: [dita] Issue for unifying acronyms and glossary

["JoAnn Hackos" <joann.hackos@comtech-serv.com>]

Dear SC members,

Please review Erik's proposal for integrating the acronym and the glossary proposals. Consider the difficulties this might present, if any, for writers and translators to handle.

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

 

 

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From: Erik Hennum [mailto:ehennum@us.ibm.com]
Sent: Wednesday, December 19, 2007 9:16 PM
To: Gershon L Joseph; JoAnn Hackos
Cc: Don Day
Subject: Fw: [dita] Issue for unifying acronyms and glossary

Hi, Ambidextrous Folk:

Could someone on dita-translation@lists.oasis-open.org please forward the attached mail? I received a bounce from the OASIS mail agent.


Thanks,


Erik Hennum
ehennum@us.ibm.com

----- Forwarded by Erik Hennum/Oakland/IBM on 12/19/2007 08:14 PM -----

Erik Hennum/Oakland/IBM@IBMUS

12/19/2007 06:25 PM

To	dita@lists.oasis-open.org, dita-translation@lists.oasis-open.org
cc	"Andrzej Zydron" <azydron@xml-intl.com>, "Gershon L Joseph" <gershon@tech-tav.com>, "JoAnn Hackos" <joann.hackos@comtech-serv.com>, "Ogden, Jeff" <jogden@ptc.com>, "Kara Warburton" <KARA@CA.IBM.COM>
Subject	RE: [dita] Issue for unifying acronyms and glossary

Hi, Terminology Folk:

I've updated the integrated terminology proposal:

http://www.oasis-open.org/apps/org/workgroup/dita/download.php/26657/IssueGlossary12026.dita

and, for convenience, the browsable HTML version:

http://www.oasis-open.org/apps/org/workgroup/dita/download.php/26656/IssueGlossary12026.html

This version makes the fixes proposed yesterday for the problems 
identified by JoAnn and Gershon on Monday (many thanks) including:

• Makes <glossdef> optional.
• Makes <glossPartOfSpeech> optional (assumed to default to noun if not specified).
• Moves <glossSurfaceForm> to <glossBody> and specialize from <p> on the grounds that the surface form will never have usage or linguistic properties; ie, it's better to treat the surface form as a property of the preferred form of the term rather than as an alternate form.

This version also fixes 
some expression issues noticed by Kara (including rewordings and corrections; 
again, many thanks).

I'd request that members of the Translation 
Subcommittee check for requirements that dropped out of this integrated proposal 
inadvertantly. In particular, please take a close look at the section on 
"Translation Issues for Abbreviated Forms" and consider whether the specified 
approach enables translation workbench software as expected.

Finally, 
given that some members of the Translation Subcommittee weren't at the full 
Technical Committee meeting on December 11th and may be wondering why an 
integration proposal even exists, let me summarize the problem that surfaced at 
that meeting.

The acronym proposal as submitted by the Translation 
Subcommittee supports markup like the following:

<abbreviated-form id="abs">
<expanded>Anti-lock Braking System</expanded>
<short>ABS</short>
<surface-form>Anti-lock Braking System (ABS)</surface-form>
</abbreviated-form>

The glossary proposal as approved by the Technical Committee in 
November supports markup like the following:

<glossentry id="abs">
<glossAcronym>ABS</glossAcronym>
<glossdef>A brake technology that minimizes skids.</glossdef>
<glossBody>
<glossPartOfSpeech value="noun"/>
<glossAlt>
<glossFullForm>Anti-lock Braking System</glossFullForm>
</glossAlt>
</glossBody>
</glossentry>

Obviously, the two markups provide an overlapping set of properties 
about the same thing:

• Both markups supply a referenceable identifier for the term.
• Both markups identify the acronym form of the term.
• Both markups identify the full form of the term.

If we can integrate the information 
from both designs, we can eliminate this redundancy problem. DITA adopters will 
be able to declare a term once and have all terminology processes (including 
those we haven't anticipated yet) operate on that single declaration. 

For instance, here's the superset of the two previous examples under the 
current integrated proposal:

<glossentry id="abs">
<glossAcronym>ABS</glossAcronym>
<glossdef>A brake technology that minimizes skids.</glossdef>
<glossBody>
<glossPartOfSpeech value="noun"/>
<glossSurfaceForm>Anti-lock Braking System (ABS)</glossSurfaceForm>
<glossAlt>
<glossFullForm>Anti-lock Braking System</glossFullForm>
</glossAlt>
</glossBody>
</glossentry>

Adopters who need all three requirements can use the full set of 
properties. Adopters with an exclusive goal of

• Glossary publishing can omit the entire <glossBody>
• Term resolution can omit the <glossdef> and <glossPartOfSpeech>
• Termbase population can omit the <glossSurfaceForm>

FWIW, I won't 
be able to do much more on this issue until the first week of 
January.


Thanks for taking a look and best wishes for the ending and 
new year,


Erik Hennum
ehennum@us.ibm.com