RE: [dita] proposal on "vocabulary" terminology

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

Bruce wrote:
>If "vocabulary"
is an elliptical way of saying "type vocabulary", and
>we all understand the derivation
of the term the same way,
>then "vocabulary"
would suffice.
> 
>Regarding "document type",
I would argue that this is a misleading term.
>It's a fragile argument, but
I'll try it anyway.
> 
>Documents are at the instance
level. A type vocabulary is at the type level.
 
OK, we're talking about different things.
Maybe that's where all this confusion stems from, and it's one more reason
for me to dislike "vocabulary".

We have type modules and domain modules.
You cannot create documents based on this modules. You can, however, knit
these modules together using a shell DTD or schema file to create an actual
document type, based on which you can create actual documents.  The
information type modules and domain modules are not being called vocabularies,
and I don't think anyone is suggesting they should be (although they have
in the past, Erik's proposal is to use the word vocabulary in a different
way that would be at odds with this usage). The nice thing about the word
module is that it applies either to DTDs or to schemas, so it's sufficient
for our purposes.

The shell file that pulls the modules
together into a document type has been previously called a "DTD shell
file" or "schema shell file". The resulting DTD or schema
has been called a "DTD" or "schema". We need a generic
word to refer to these DTD or schema artifacts (the shell file and the
resulting document type). I had previously been using "shell file"
and "document type" respectively. There was a concern that the
term "document type" was DTD-specific, and alternatives were
proposed, including "vocabulary".

I no longer buy that "document
type" is a DTD-specific term, and thus I no longer buy that we need
a new term to replace it. "Document type" is being used in exactly
the sense we want by the XHTML specification, which has the exact same
concerns we do: implementation in both schema and DTD, and document types
created by integrating multiple modules, each of which on its own is insufficient
to create a document. 

Michael Priestley
mpriestl@ca.ibm.com
Dept PRG IBM Canada  phone: 416-915-8262
Toronto Information Development