My comments on the LwDITA CN

I tried to limit my comments to things that no other people have written; sorry for errant duplication.

I've written several items in the form of questions, not necessarily because I'm hoping someone will answer me, but so as to induce a consideration of the point by the subcommittee/editors of the CN.

mag

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1.1 References

Why are the references right up at the front? That seems strange.

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2 Why Lightweight DITA?

... if we can define

a lower-function level of interchange. LwDITA can provide this mapping; it can become the first

version of DITA to be truly cross-format - allowing authoring and delivery in a mix of native

formats all mapped to a common semantic standard.

This bit of text seems odd to me in a way that I can't quite identify, written as it is with a hypothetical voice instead of a descriptive one. I'd suggest recrafting.

As a minor point, there's a hyphen in there that should be an emdash.

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3.1 Simplified structure

... In the base edition, DITA 1.3 has three

document types and 189 element types. In contrast, LwDITA has two document types and 40

elements. 33 of the elements are defined in DITA 1.3, and the other seven are multimedia

elements that are expected to be part of DITA 2.0.

Has someone checked and double-checked these numbers?

Also, this compares LwDITA to the base edition, which is the "simplest" edition, but maybe people wouldn't realize/notice that. Is it worth drawing attention to how much more complex the Tech Content and "full" L&T editions are?

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3.2 Support for non-XML formats

HDITA and XDITA are designed to be fully compatible with each other, while MDITA is a

compatible subset.

From this sentence I infer that there will be automated:

- lossless transformations between HDITA and XDITA (both ways; i.e. roundtripping possible)

- lossless transformation from MDITA to HDITA/XDITA

- lossy transformation from HDITA/XDITA to MDITA

Is that all correct?

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3.3 Development of LwDITA tools and applications

In contrast, the simplified and predictable

structure of LwDITA ought to remove many of the barriers that stand in the way of the

development of new tools, both commercial and open-source.

I'm distracted and confused by the word "predictable" here. What about LwDITA is predictable that is not predictable about DITA? The word is being used as if it should be evident from the rest of the paper so far, but I haven't read anything that made me think anything like it. Actually I'm not really sure what that would even mean.

If there is something I'm not seeing, I wonder if perhaps that point needs to be made more evident earlier in the paper.

[Followup note: I do see "predictable" again later in the paper, and it makes a little more sense there. I think this concept definitely could do with an earlier clarification.]

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4 Lightweight DITA design

LwDITA is designed to have a smaller element set, a stricter content model, and fewer reuse

mechanisms than DITA 1.3. However, LwDITA also includes new elements and attributes that

provide increased multimedia support.

Some points that might not be worth considering to include in this paragraph as reassurances:

- The committee(s) recognize(s) that "new elements" means *DITA is not a proper subset of DITA 1.3 and that's ... okay

- It's expected that the new stuff will be in DITA 2.0

- It's expected that transformations from *DITA to DITA 1.3 will handle the new elements gracefully

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4.1 Elements in the LwDITA topic

, super script, subscript

Is that right--two words; one word?

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4.3 Stricter content model

LwDITA has a much stricter content model than DITA 1.3

Sentence missing a period.

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4.5 New multimedia elements

However, one of HTML5 key features was the introduction of direct elements

for audio and video.

Grammar: "one of HTML5 key features"

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4.5 New multimedia elements

Track is a link time-based text data relevant to audio or video content.

... is a link *to* ...

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5.1 XDITA

XDITA is the authoring format of LwDITA that uses XML to structure information. XDITA is a

subset of DITA, with new multimedia elements added to support interoperability with HTML5.

This introductory comment seems like the best place to explicitly mention the presence/absence/expectations of multimedia elements in 1.3/2.0.

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5.1.2 Example of an XDITA topic

Indentation of <video> tag in the code example.

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5.1.2 Example of an XDITA topic

XDITA topics are designed to be fully compatible with DITA topics. An author can work on

an XDITA topic and keep it in a collection of LwDITA topics, but that same topic will also be

compatible with maps and topics authored in DITA 1.3.

How so with <video>?

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6 Lightweight DITA tools

I'm not so sure that "several" is quite the right term here (yet).

dita message