Can conventions for human understanding be MUST requirements?

[Dana Spradley <dana.spradley@oracle.com>]

Looking over Don's notes from today's meeting, I paused over the following:

>Discussion of Conformance section. 
>Sue-Laine asked for clarification of the goals. Dana asked about Must  
>requirements; Eliot: issue is processor requirements vs coding (data) 
>requirements (conventions for human  understanding as well as machine 
>interoperability).

If our coding standards are only intended to promote human understanding - and aren't sufficient to automate the interchange of new DTD/XSD modules - can they really be "must" requirements?

I don't think so...

Basically: if by following them in a fashion that DTD/XSD editors could automate, you can't ensure "plug and play" interoperability between DITA installations and across different vendors' DITA implementations - then they are "may" standards at best - or merely best practices that the TC itself follows in the DTDs and XSDs we release.

Perhaps that is why they were originally called "design patterns," not "coding standards."

--Dana


-----Original Message-----
From: dond@us.ibm.com [mailto:dond@us.ibm.com] 
Sent: Tuesday, January 12, 2010 9:28 AM
To: dita@lists.oasis-open.org
Subject: [dita] Groups - OASIS DITA TC Meeting modified

Minutes embedded in today's meeting notice. Will upload separately as 13January2010Minutes.txt.

 -- Don Day


OASIS DITA TC Meeting has been modified by Don Day

Date:  Tuesday, 12 January 2010
Time:  08:00am - 09:00am PT

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Agenda:
Agenda for 13 January 2010 DITA TC Meeting/Call

See the DITA TC Wiki: http://wiki.oasis-open.org/dita/FrontPage

Minutes:
Minutes for 13 January 2010 DITA TC Meeting/Call

8:00-8:05 Roll call

Solicit volunteer to take minutes 
>Don (note that actions are bracketed for visibility)

Approve minutes from previous business meetings:
>Skipped, no minutes available from Jan 5

Subcommittee/liaison reports (as needed)
    * OASIS DITA Adoption TC (Gershon) 
>Skipped for focus on review

Business:
   1. ITEM: DITA 1.2 specification
          * Business (edited by Eberlein, 5 and 12 January 2010 for 12 January TC meeting):
               1. Status of 3rd review:
>Kristen: Reviewers, please update statuses.
               2. Opening of review for the "Subject scheme map" topic: SubjectSchemeMap3: Wiki page
>Kristen noted guidelines for reviewers. Kristen will send out an email 
>announcing formal update of this review. JoAnn: reviewers, please add 
>substantive, researched text if at all possible. Kris suggested 
>designating EH and RDA as primary reviewers. JoAnn felt Taxonomy should 
>be in another topic, Kristen noted they'll look at recommendations for that. JoAnn asked if a relationship table should be in a subject scheme map.
>[Action: Kristen will add links to review page for the subject scheme 
>topic for the proposed email to the list.] Robert volunteered to 
>review, and will involve Erik as necessary. Bruce Nevin volunteered

               3. Issue identified in review #3: Redundant topics
>Gershon led this portion of discussion. Note the author's table--now 
>the current focus of activity. Authors, please send dates of completion to Gershon and Kristen.
>Kristen: MP noted that the introduction sections overlap other conceptual topics in other parts of the spec. 
>She will send revision suggestions to the list. 
>Gershon walked through the rest of the table to clarify actions with authors.
>Gershon requested someone to take on the Base DITA Processing items 
>particularly. He will own the full section (135+ comments to date).
> Eliot to let Gershon and Kristen know if reorganization of his section 
>is needed yet. Will coordinate with  Jeff, MP as necessary.
> Robert reported that John Hunt in on progress for all inputs this week. Robert also on goal for this week.
>[Action: Gershon to send an email to John Hunt to confirm when he will 
>be able to complete those inputs.]  Discussion of Conformance section. 
>Sue-Laine asked for clarification of the goals. Dana asked about Must  
>requirements; Eliot: issue is processor requirements vs coding (data) 
>requirements (conventions for human  understanding as well as machine 
>interoperability).  Eliot: element matching vs class matching impacts  guaranteed conformance, for example. Where the spec says Must, applications must conform. Dana requests that  interoperability notions be spelled out as specifically as possible. Kristen: how to move forward? Sue-Laine:
> more eyes on it to ensure it is meeting needs (KE will volunteer; SY will ask her partners to look as well). 
>[Action: Sue-Laine to contact Eliot for clarifications.]  Eliot 
>suggested that it can be abbreviated while still making some strong 
>assertions about compliant DITA  expectations. Jeff requested release 
>from ownership of where the rewrite may go. Kristen recognized Jeff's  contributions to this conformance statement thus far for the record.
>Appendices: no current owner. Eliot will be responsible for interop and 
>1.1 to 1.2 migration guide.  Robert has updated the element by element topic--it is done for 1.2.
>Gershon and Kristen will send new dates after taking inputs this week.
               4. Status of authors' work handling review #3 comments: url
               5. Revise schedule to accommodate the following items:
               6. Status: PDF output of the DITA 1.2 spec (Kimber)
               7. Heads-up about future changes
               8. Low(er) priority items:
   2. ITEM: Metadata Elements
>Completed last week
   3. ITEM: Foreign element description
>Completed last week
   4. New ITEMS: (if not covered in review items for #1,above)
          * DITA 1.2 Conformance
>Discussed above
          * Conditional processing
>Comments already in wiki
          * Filtering logic for  element
>Sue-Laine notes that wording to date is now or soon to be on the wiki. 
>Gershon: keep filtering discussion on the list, and resolve to the wiki 
>if possible. If the list discussion remains open next week, then we can keep this item on the agenda.
   5. New ITEM: PDF Generation for Spec Draft
          * http://lists.oasis-open.org/archives/dita/201001/msg00074.html (Kimber, Self, Joseph, and others)
          * Discuss any further customizations; need volunteer to set up wiki page for process documentation 
>Don acknowledged work by Robert and Kristen as well, and thanked the 
>preparers for helping on the production quality issues. Please help Eliot with his tweaking questions on the list as this new plugin gets tested.

8:55 Adjourn 

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