Re: [dita] ditabase

["Don Day (LbyW)" <donday@learningbywrote.com>]

The DocBook designers have a interesting take on topic assemblies. I suggest the DITA TC learn what it can from their take on organizing resources and structures (which have properties similar to <dita>, keydefs, keyrefs in topicrefs). I see an interesting distinction between literal vs referential containers (where <dita> is a literal container and <resources> is a referential container). This seems to enable useful models for content management vs production management, and might suggest perhaps a redefinition of the role (and containment) of <dita> in a map rather than removing it.

http://www.xmlmind.com/tutorials/DocBookAssemblies/index.html

I think I had suggested looking at this model last year, but the current discussion should at least reference any useful concepts this design informs on.

--
Don Day

On 4/18/2018 7:32 PM, Eliot Kimber wrote:

I can’t agree with the assertion that ditabase is obsolete—it has a necessary utility—Robert provided some compelling use cases from IBM (e.g., 100s of small message topics organized together in a single <dita> document).

 

I’ve definitely seen the ditabase document type abused as a way to avoid creating local shells because it allows unrestricted topic type nesting—I find that distasteful but it’s not exactly wrong, even if it is a big misguided.

 

Cheers,

 

E.

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Eliot Kimber

http://contrext.com

 

 

From: <dita@lists.oasis-open.org> on behalf of Magliery Tom <tom.magliery@justsystems.com>
Date: Wednesday, April 18, 2018 at 6:51 PM
To: Jim Tivy <jimt@bluestream.com>
Cc: "dita@lists.oasis-open.org" <dita@lists.oasis-open.org>
Subject: Re: [dita] ditabase

 

FWIW that content is not directly from oXygen; it is from Tony Self's book The DITA Style Guide (2011), republished in oXygen docs (by arrangement).

 

mag

 

On Wed, Apr 18, 2018 at 4:41 PM, Jim Tivy <jimt@bluestream.com> wrote:

https://www.oxygenxml.com/dita/styleguide/webhelp-feedback/Artefact/Topics_and_Information_Types/c_Using_Ditabase.html

Can we get rid of <dita> for DITA 2.0.  We just had another issue here and with Oxygen posting the above we are wondering how long the ecology of tools will continue support for <dita>.

I realize this was discussed a few weeks back and it seemed there was support for <dita> removal.

What would be the easiest upgrade for people with <dita> files?  There was some mention of needing a title but users could have an empty title or descriptive title at their option.

Jim


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--

Don R. Day
Founding Chair, OASIS DITA Technical Committee (current version: DITA 1.3)
LinkedIn: donrday   Twitter: @donrday
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