RE: [dita-adoption] Adopting DITA usually starts with migrating

With the popularity of Web 2.0 tools such as blogs and wikis in the workplace, I suspect that we will soon see a large proportion of "legacy" content be captured in those tools, which tend to have fairly simple (and non-standard) markup. I believe that this is potentially a fruitful areas where DITA could offer a standard-based architecture to "re-organize" those "chaotic" Web 2.0 content, so that they could be single-sourced, reused, and re-purposed.

I wonder if this is an area which might be part of the (to-be) migration SC or would better to stand on itself.

Scott Tsao
Information Architect - Associate Technical Fellow
The Boeing Company

-----Original Message-----
From: Troy Klukewich [mailto:troy.klukewich@oracle.com]
Sent: Tuesday, September 02, 2008 2:25 PM
To: DITA Adoption TC
Subject: RE: [dita-adoption] Adopting DITA usually starts with migrating

I also agree that migration coverage is an excellent idea. I'd like to be involved with developing migration best practices. I've been involved with several XML conversions from Frame (ouch) and Word (oh, the pain). I've also written for CIDM Best Practices on this very subject: Legacy Content Pitfalls and Potentials, June 2008.

I find that in general the cost of the initial conversion is in excess of setting up the structured documentation system itself, at least for larger projects, which seems the norm. It makes sense to go where the money impacts are and address the risks upfront.

I suspect that more than a few implementations have tripped up over conversions of legacy material, perhaps not quite understanding how the structured model really works and how different the old material really is. I remember one fond experience where a prototype determined that it would take us less time to rewrite everything from scratch than to attempt updating the existing documentation to conform to structured documentation principles. Our initial thought was, "How hard can it be?" Were we surprised.

Troy Klukewich

-----Original Message-----
From: Gershon Joseph (gerjosep) [mailto:gerjosep@cisco.com]
Sent: Monday, September 01, 2008 10:38 AM
To: Claude Vedovini; DITA Adoption TC
Subject: RE: [dita-adoption] Adopting DITA usually starts with migrating

Hi Claude,

This is an excellent idea. I've migrated tens of clients to DITA from Word, FrameMaker, and a few more esoteric tools in the past. It's never trivial. We may even consider a subcommittee to develop this best practice (or set of best practices), as well as a dedicated area on dita.xml.org to house this roadmap and associated content.

Gershon

-----Original Message-----
From: claude.vedovini@gmail.com [mailto:claude.vedovini@gmail.com] On Behalf Of Claude Vedovini
Sent: Saturday, August 30, 2008 6:39 PM
To: DITA Adoption TC
Subject: [dita-adoption] Adopting DITA usually starts with migrating

Hi all,

I just though about this today (adopting DITA usually starts with
migrating) and was wondering if we should not define a migration roadmap and guide from popular formats (like Word) to DITA?

Kind regards.

--
Claude Vedovini
Software Consulting & Development
+41 78 617 86 98
http://vedovini.net/
http://www.dita-op.org/

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