RE: [dita] Why There are Constraints on Conref

["Grosso, Paul" <pgrosso@ptc.com>]

Once we correct our temporary draft 1.2 oversight and put
the (strict) task back into ditabase as we plan to do, 
there will be no difference beween 1.1 and 1.2 as far as 
this "conref constaints" issue.

Therefore, at this late date in 1.2 when we're supposed
to have already have published it as a standard, I see no
reason to be making basic additions to the concepts of DITA
processing.

I think Michael's idea has promise, and I look forward to
discussing it in a 1.3 timeframe--along with other issues
that we have recently realized (conref checking and topic
nesting, for those who have seen those emails)--when we
have time to consider them fully.

If something worked in 1.1 (and 1.0), then it can't be so
broken that we must hold up 1.2 further.  Let's get 1.2 out.

paul

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Don Day [mailto:dond@us.ibm.com]
> Sent: Monday, 2009 September 28 15:42
> To: dita
> Subject: Re: [dita] Why There are Constraints on Conref
> 
> Tomorrow I plan to have the DITA TC discuss the due process for
> qualifying
> this late proposal. Considering the importance of the discussion and
> the
> general agreement with Michael's suggestion, the due diligence seems
> warranted.  I think everyone (including end users of the 1.2
> specification)
> will appreciate our being convinced, one way or the other, of the
value
> of
> this suggestion for the issues that have been raised.
> 
> We seem to be assuming that Michael will do the deep thought, but if
we
> approve the investigation, I want to be sure that he and others do
have
> the
> bandwidth to work the examples and be assured that we have a solid
> proposal.
> 
> Regards,
> --
> Don Day
> Chair, OASIS DITA Technical Committee
> Architect, Lightweight DITA Publishing Solutions
> Email: dond@us.ibm.com
> 11501 Burnet Rd. MS9033E015, Austin TX 78758
> Phone: +1 512-244-2868 (home office)
> 
> "Where is the wisdom we have lost in knowledge?
>  Where is the knowledge we have lost in information?"
>    --T.S. Eliot
> 
> 
> 
>   From:       ekimber <ekimber@reallysi.com>
> 
>   To:         "Ogden, Jeff" <jogden@ptc.com>, Michael Priestley
> <mpriestl@ca.ibm.com>
> 
>   Cc:         dita <dita@lists.oasis-open.org>, <rob@ascan.ca>, Su-
> Laine Yeo
>               <su-laine.yeo@justsystems.com>
> 
>   Date:       09/28/2009 01:55 PM
> 
>   Subject:    Re: [dita] Why There are Constraints on Conref
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> I agree that we should have a formal proposal and some time to think
it
> through. I'm sure that simply having MP take the time think through
the
> language of a formal proposal would do a long way toward either making
> it
> reliably solid or determining that it's ill advised upon deeper
> consideration.
> 
> Cheers,
> 
> E.
> 
> On 9/28/09 1:51 PM, "Ogden, Jeff" <jogden@ptc.com> wrote:
> 
> > If we do implement weak constraints for DITA 1.2 or 1.3, what sort
of
> > constraint would we include for task in ditabase (strict or weak-
> strict,
> > I assume that general is not an option) and what sort of constraint
> > would we include in task.dtd (strict or weak-strict)?
> >
> >
> >
> > Is a weak constraint something that is decided by the constraint
> author
> > or is it something that can be overridden in a customized doctype
> shell?
> >
> >
> >
> > Just writing the name weak-strict gave me the creeps, but I guess we
> > could pick a better name or perhaps task.dtd is always strict and
> strict
> > always implies weak, so the name remains task which is strict task
or
> > weak-strict task.
> >
> >
> >
> > My main concern here is that adding weak constraints is going to
make
> > something that is pretty complicated already even more complicated.
> It
> > seems that few people understand it now and so making things more
> > complicated isn't likely to help.  But I guess if people are willing
> to
> > use the doctype shells on "faith" without really understanding and
if
> > the information designers do a good job or are lucky, then people
> won't
> > run into problems and life will be good (as good as it was in DITA
> 1.0
> > and 1.1 anyway).
> >
> >
> >
> > I also worry that making changes like this in a rush at the last
> minute
> > without a real proposal may cause us to doing something without
> really
> > thinking it through and we may come to regret it later.
> >
> >
> >
> >    -Jeff
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> > From: Michael Priestley [mailto:mpriestl@ca.ibm.com]
> > Sent: Friday, September 25, 2009 2:05 PM
> > To: ekimber
> > Cc: dita; Ogden, Jeff; rob@ascan.ca; Su-Laine Yeo
> > Subject: Re: [dita] Why There are Constraints on Conref
> >
> >
> >
> >
> > Eliot, I think that's an eloquent description of the rationale for
> the
> > current situation, and it's certainly where my thinking is coming
> from
> > as well.
> >
> > I did have a thought on how we might be able to achieve a compromise
> of
> > sorts, preserving the strict validation that we both consider
> necessary
> > for robust processes, while allowing for broader reuse scope in some
> of
> > the cases Rob and others have been asking for (including task-
> >general
> > task).
> >
> > Here's my thought:
> >
> > - if the doctype developer knows upfront whether a constraint is
just
> an
> > authoring guideline or whether it's a strict business requirement,
> they
> > could annotate the constraint on inclusion
> > - constraints noted as "weak" would be ignored by conref validation,
> and
> > would be considered unreliable by processors, which would need to
> assume
> > the constraint wasn't there as well
> >
> > Example:
> > - group A introduces a constraint that makes title in fig required -
> > they have a figlist generator that depends on this, so they make the
> > constraint required - if someone tries to conref from a place that
> > allows title-less figs, they'll get an error, and will have to
> negotiate
> > with the other team to introduce the constraint in their shared
> content
> > - group B introduces a constraint that makes <ul> unavailable in
<p>,
> > because they think it's simpler for their authors. But they don't
> depend
> > on it, the output looks the same whether they allow <ul> inside <p>
> or
> > not, and they may need to conref content from another team that
> doesn't
> > use the constraint. So they make the constraint "weak" instead of
> > required.
> >
> > Technical complexity:
> > - add a flag to constraints to indicate when they are included as
> "weak"
> > - eg - domains=" w(myconstraint) "
> > - add a check to conref validation that ignores weak constraints
when
> > determining validity
> >
> > If we wanted to, we could then implement our strict task as a weak
> > constraint, so it would be able to conref from loose task.
> >
> > I think this might address the concerns of both sides - it gives us
> > strong constraints when there are business or processing
requirements
> on
> > the constrained structure, but allows reuse in other cases.
> >
> > All that said, I'm very aware of how late in the cycle we are, and I
> > don't think the cross-constraint use case is actually going to come
> up
> > that often. So there's probably a few questions to ask:
> >
> > - is this a useful idea?
> > - does it address the use cases of both sides?
> > - if it is, is it useful enough to change in 1.2, or should it wait
> till
> > 1.3?
> >
> > Michael Priestley, Senior Technical Staff Member (STSM)
> > Lead IBM DITA Architect
> > mpriestl@ca.ibm.com
> > http://dita.xml.org/blog/25 <http://dita.xml.org/blog/25>
> >
> >
> >
> > From:
> >
> > ekimber <ekimber@reallysi.com>
> >
> > To:
> >
> > <rob@ascan.ca>, Su-Laine Yeo <su-laine.yeo@justsystems.com>, Michael
> > Priestley/Toronto/IBM@IBMCA
> >
> > Cc:
> >
> > dita <dita@lists.oasis-open.org>, Jeff Ogden <jogden@ptc.com>
> >
> > Date:
> >
> > 09/24/2009 11:52 PM
> >
> > Subject:
> >
> > Re: [dita] Why There are Constraints on Conref
> >
> >
> >
> > ________________________________
> >
> >
> >
> >
> > On 9/24/09 10:23 PM, "Rob Hanna" <rob@ascan.ca> wrote:
> >
> >>> They might be making content outside
> >>> their environment unusable *by them*
> >>> but they would not be making their
> >>> content unusable to others who use fewer
> >>> constraints.
> >>
> >> What if instead of having fewer constraints, they have different
> > constraints?
> >> This is not simply a matter of just two task variations. Over time
> the
> >> variations of standard topic types introduced through constraints
> will
> > grow.
> >
> > This is why you have the domains attribute at all: so you can
analyze
> > the
> > constraints at use in two DITA documents to determine if they are
> > compatible. This at least lets you detect this situation early,
> rather
> > than
> > late (such as after a publication has been published).
> >
> >> For example, consider one possible scenario I see where this might
> > present a
> >> problem:
> >>
> >> "Over the course of several years a department's style guide
changes
> > several
> >> times through reorgs and acquisitions - each time enforced with a
> > different
> >> set of constraints introduced. There is no budget to convert the
> older
> >> content. Over time reuse opportunities are lost and content must be
> > duplicated
> >> to suit different doc sets written to adhere to separate
> constraints."
> >>
> >> As it stands now, constraints do not deprecate gracefully as would
> > domain
> >> specializations. Even substructures within structurally specialized
> > content
> >> can generally be reused safely.
> >
> > Note that it is *easy* to remove constraints: you simply update your
> > shells
> > to stop including the constraint modules. No need to modify the
> > documents
> > involved.
> >
> > That means that given two sets of content that have incompatible
> > constraints
> > you can make them compatible by changing their governing shells to
be
> > less
> > constrained.
> >
> > But in fact I think what you are expressing is a problem inherent in
> any
> > interoperation situation. DITA isn't changing the fact that two
> > interchanging communities might have divergent rules over time such
> that
> > there may be data and processing interoperation problems: that's an
> > unavoidable fact of life.
> >
> > What DITA is saying is "we're giving you a way to detect that case
> > early,
> > rather than late" and make an informed decision about how to react.
> >
> > In practice I think most DITA users will tend to avoid constraints
> > simply
> > because any constraint, by its nature, tends to impede bidirectional
> > interchange.
> >
> > The only reason we're having this discussion at all is because DITA
> 1.0
> > inherited an over-constrained task model from IBM, something we
> should
> > have
> > fixed in 1.1 but didn't. It's only now that we have the constraint
> > mechanism
> > that we can fix the problem (overconstrained tasks) in a way that
> allows
> > backward compatibility without having to define a completely
> different
> > task
> > base type and specialization.
> >
> >> This is an issue that can only get more complex over time. In my
> > opinion,
> >> processors must be designed to handle the base (or call it general
> or
> > loose)
> >> structures with warnings to ensure seamless exchange of content.
> >
> > But it's not that easy: there may be processing cases where it would
> be
> > at
> > best wrong, at worst impossible, to properly process and render
> > unconstrained content in a constrained context, because the
> constraints
> > are
> > there, in that case, to enable or ensure a particular presentation.
> So
> > you
> > can't simply say "processors have to be able to process any
> combination
> > of
> > stuff".
> >
> > Cheers,
> >
> > E.
> >
> > ----
> > Eliot Kimber | Senior Solutions Architect | Really Strategies, Inc.
> > email:  ekimber@reallysi.com <mailto:ekimber@reallysi.com
> > <mailto:ekimber@reallysi.com> >
> > office: 610.631.6770 | cell: 512.554.9368
> > 2570 Boulevard of the Generals | Suite 213 | Audubon, PA 19403
> > www.reallysi.com <http://www.reallysi.com <http://www.reallysi.com/>
> >
> > | http://blog.reallysi.com <http://blog.reallysi.com/>
> > <http://blog.reallysi.com <http://blog.reallysi.com/> > |
> > www.rsuitecms.com <http://www.rsuitecms.com
> <http://www.rsuitecms.com/>
> >>
> >
> >
> >
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> 
> ----
> Eliot Kimber | Senior Solutions Architect | Really Strategies, Inc.
> email:  ekimber@reallysi.com <mailto:ekimber@reallysi.com>
> office: 610.631.6770 | cell: 512.554.9368
> 2570 Boulevard of the Generals | Suite 213 | Audubon, PA 19403
> www.reallysi.com <http://www.reallysi.com>  | http://blog.reallysi.com
> <http://blog.reallysi.com> | www.rsuitecms.com
> <http://www.rsuitecms.com>
> 
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