Re: [dita-lightweight-dita] reaction to LwDITA spec

["Michael Priestley" <mpriestl@ca.ibm.com>]

Hi Alan,

Welcome to the subcommittee!

I think LWDITA can be both things -
a lightweight topic definition in XML, and a standard for creating DITA
in other formats with in some cases some smaller subset of DITA functionality.

In fact the two are related - among
the main drivers for LWDITA are:

- complexity of full DITA
- dislike of XML

By simplifying the topic definition,
we make a mapping to DITA in other formats possible. If you stop with simplified
topic, then you don't address the industries and professions that don't
like XML (including a lot of software companies with documentation projects
organized around SME/programmer needs).

LWDITA in XML is a subset of full DITA
and is compatible with full DITA tool chains. 

With regards to markdown authoring,
people are already authoring markdown with varying degrees of validation
and varying degrees of support for variable content and reuse. What we
are trying to do is standardize the mappings to DITA where possible, so
that for example you can have a common taxonomy used for classification
and filtering across both formats, or a common variables file for UI elements
or other changeable/volatile content.

Michael Priestley, Senior Technical Staff Member (STSM)
Enterprise Content Technology Strategist
mpriestl@ca.ibm.com



From:      
 Alan Houser <arh@groupwellesley.com>
To:      
 dita-lightweight-dita@lists.oasis-open.org,
dita-adoption@lists.oasis-open.org
Date:      
 02/13/2017 10:10 AM
Subject:    
   [dita-lightweight-dita]
reaction to LwDITA spec
Sent by:    
   <dita-lightweight-dita@lists.oasis-open.org>

---

I've been following LwDITA for some time. I'm pleased
to see the recent 
progress on the spec, and acknowledge that others have put a lot of work
into it.

But ... I'm starting to see LwDITA as an effort to overload Markdown and
HTML5 semantics to express (as much as possible) DITA features, more 
than an effort to develop a framework that will support low 
barrier-to-entry DITA authoring, and "easy" interchange between
Markdown/HTML5 and DITA.

In a vacuum, the effort to replicate DITA features in LwDITA might be 
fine. But an alternative exists today, with full availability of DITA 
features, and a reasonably small (and intuitive, IMO) vocabulary. That
alternative is the DITA <topic> with the highlighting domain, and
the 
DITA <map>. Also available today ... full tools support. (Gotta admit
that I shudder at the thought of validating, let alone authoring, DITA
constructs like conrefs, filtering, and keys in Markdown).

Specializing and constraining <topic> to reflect goals of the current
LwDITA design would be easy. Specifically, I'm thinking of limiting 
mixed content, and specializing new multimedia element types.

I may be all wet here, but I would be curious to know the reaction of 
other TC members to these observations, on this list or in-person at 
DITA North America.

-Alan

-- 
Alan Houser
Group Wellesley, Inc.
Consultant and Trainer, Technical Publishing
arh on Twitter
412-450-0532

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