Re: [dita] DITAbase for conversion

[Alan Houser <arh@groupwellesley.com>]

Title: Re: [dita] DITAbase for conversion

There is a lot going on in this thread, and I haven't been able to fully digest everything.

I will disagree that a motivation for the general task was as a basis for specialization. The motivation was to provide an "out-of-the-box" specialization that would be appropriate for a larger number of use cases than would the 1.0/1.1 task model. The current (1.0/1.1) task model imposes constraints that are either too restrictive or semantically irrelevant (e.g., the required <cmd>) for many organizations.

So .... the motivation was to make DITA a better "fit", without specialization, for a larger number of organizations and use cases.

Given this motivation, I would like to see ditabase include the general task model. Other technical and delivery issues may take precedence, however.

-Alan
----

Alan Houser, President
Group Wellesley, Inc.
412-363-3481
www.groupwellesley.com

Grosso, Paul wrote:

CF83BAA719FD2C439D25CBB1C9D1D30210E3D2EE@HQ-MAIL4.ptcnet.ptc.com" type="cite">

My understanding was that one of the main reasons for the general (looser) task model was as a basis for specialization (since a specialization cannot be more general that its base, so you have to start with a fairly general one).

 

And, if it is used by a customer as a basis for specialization, then what they will want to have in their version of ditabase--for all the reasons we want the stricter task in the TC one--is going to be their (stricter than general) specialization of general task.

 

So having a ditabase with general task will do such users no good.

 

I don't think we should provide such.  It will more likely than not just cause users more problems when they think they can use such a ditabase with their specialized-from-general tasks.

 

paul