Here are the minutes from our 11/03/16 LwDITA syntax taskforce call.
In attendance: Don Day, Carlos Evia, Mark Giffin, Keith Schengili-Roberts, and Joe Storbeck.
The taskforce discussed ideas and potential sections for the committee note that K. Eberlein suggested as a LwDITA progress report and "proposal."
The taskforce members agreed, tentatively, on the proposed structure for the LwDITA spec, which includes the following for each LwDITA element:
- A short description
- Representation in XDITA
- Representation in HDITA
- Representation in MDITA
- Examples and attributes
Don suggested avoiding "polyglot" LwDITA topics. Therefore, we discussed minimizing the use of YAML or similar secondary languages in HDITA and MDITA topics. The taskforce questioned the validated ROI for deviating from standards.
For MDITA, the taskforce recommends using CommonMark or GitHub Flavored Markdown with YAML headers for prolog information. We also agreed on the need to avoid processing hacks (Jekyll, or Kramdown equivalents like the identifiers for paragraphs in IBM's BlueMix).
A major question was about roundtripping of content created in MDITA or HDITA. Should MDITA and HDITA topics be consumable outside of LwDITA?
Best,
Carlos
--
Carlos Evia, Ph.D.
Director of Professional and Technical Writing
Associate Professor of Technical Communication
Department of English
Center for Human-Computer Interaction
Virginia Tech
Blacksburg, VA 24061-0112
(540)200-8201