All four of these use cases can be accomplished with <topic> as the root element. You don’t need <dita>. This is why I toyed with the idea of removing <dita> a few weeks ago.
The use-case that turned me around was that of referencing a ditabase from a map without a fragment identifier, which should result in all those topics appearing in output as siblings
of each other. You can’t do that with <topic> without adding a layer of hierarchy.
Chris
There are several compelling use cases:
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Aggregating small topics, such as message topics
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Used for conref library files
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Creating only one topic shell (assuming that all topic types need the same domains), and using the CMS templates to specify the topic type. IXIASOFT does this by default.
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Being useful for migrating content (WARNING: If the content stays in ditabase, that's ... icky.)
I think removing ditabase would be very intrusive and disruptive.
Best,
Kris
Kristen James Eberlein
Chair, OASIS DITA Technical Committee
Principal consultant, Eberlein Consulting
www.eberleinconsulting.com
+1 919 622-1501; kriseberlein (skype)
On 4/18/2018 8:32 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I can’t agree with the assertion that ditabase is obsolete—it has a necessary utility—Robert provided some compelling use cases from IBM (e.g., 100s of small message topics organized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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