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Subject: Some comments on the spec
With apologies that my comments mix typos with more substantial issues, here is what I have with my latest review. paul ###################################################### Chapter 2. An introduction to DITA ================================== Definitions and background concepts/terminology ------------------------------------------------ In the definitions of {topic,map,domain} type module, we say: "A type module that collects...." Collects? I don't know what other word to suggest, but "collects" doesn't quite resonate for me. Under Declaration terminology, we use the phrase "syntactic scheme" as in: "The representation within a syntactic scheme (DTD, XML Schema, Relax NG)..." I'm not sure everyone would agree that DTDs/schemas are solely syntactic. How about "schema technology" (note lowercase "s" which, along with the parenthetical phrase following the first occurrence, should make clear what we mean). Regarding Document type declaration shell, we define this term, but then twice within this para and the next use the term "document type shell" which we don't define. Regarding the draft comment: should we mention here that when we omit instance we still are typically talking about instances? eg "maps assemble topics" is equivalent to saying "map instances assemble topic instances". should we even include instance? it's accurate but I'm not sure that it's ever necessary. I think we should leave the "instance" defns and add a note as suggested that when we omit instance we still are typically talking about instances. It's useful to have the more specific terminology at times even if we often take shortcuts. Chapter 3. DITA markup ====================== DITA markup/Common attributes/Identity attributes ------------------------------------------------- Near the top, we need to explain that DITA ids are not of the same type as DTD IDs or XML Schema xsd:id. Otherwise, someone reading this section is going to suffer severe headaches thinking that the values you show aren't "valid ids." DITA markup/Common attributes/Content reference attribute --------------------------------------------------------- Likewise, we need a note here saying this isn't SGML's conref. Regarding: Replacement of the placeholder occurs prior to presentation or other operations on the full topic. In this respect, the DITA conref attribute resembles the XLink behaviors produced by the combination of an embed value for the xlink:show attribute and of an onLoad value for the xlink:actuate attribute. This isn't correct. XLink's (much misunderstood) "embed" semantic implies the target is formatted first in its native location and a presentation is then embedded in the presented result. (Actually, "embed" is mostly for graphics, and the XLink spec doesn't define what it means to embed XML.) In the case of DITA's conref, the target is pulled into the referencing location first and then formatted in it new context. I suggest something like: Replacement of the placeholder occurs after parsing of the document but prior to any styling or other transformational or presentational operations on the full topic. (No need to mention XLink.) Regarding: a processor resolving a conref should make sure that ... all elements within the referenced content fragment are valid within the referencing element. But in an earlier paragraph, we say: the conref is guaranteed to remain valid. That is, editing in the source and destination documents won't invalidate the content reference so how can an element within the referenced fragment be invalid in the referencing element? And later we say a conref resolving processor should tolerate specializations. I agree with the draft comment that says this sounds wrong, but I don't have specific suggested wording improvements. Regarding the draft comment about xinclude, fwiw, xinclude does no validation, so it doesn't provide any such checking. DITA topics/Information Types/Tasks ----------------------------------- The first sentence under "Why Tasks" isn't quite a sentence. (The way I parse it, it's missing a verb.) The next sentence with "How do I"?" has an extraneous double quote. DITA topics/Information Types/Reference --------------------------------------- Second sentence under "Why Reference" starts "A reference topics..." which has a subject/verb plurality agreement problem. DITA maps --------- The last para before "Why DITA maps" seems to have three sentences but only one period. DITA maps/Common DITA map attributes and metadata ------------------------------------------------- Regarding navtitle, there is a draft comment about changing its name to prototitle. Are we talking about doing that in DITA 1.0 or in a future version? DITA maps/DITA map structure ---------------------------- Third para includes "...they are equivalent toe topicref elements..." and the "toe" should be "to". Fourth para uses the term "relationship table" a couple times but there is one occurrence of "relation table". Chapter 4. DITA specialization ============================== Specialization, integration, customization ------------------------------------------ A draft comment asks "do we need this here?" I like this sentence, but it doesn't seem to belong here; it would seem to be useful to have it earlier in the document. Looking back to chapter 2, I notice the list of concepts (after the terminology section) are: Topics Maps Information types Domains Specialization Customization Integration It occurs to me that the first four are "things" whereas the last three are "processes" (sort of). Perhaps we should make the content of chapter 2/Definitions and background concepts more like: Terminology Topics Maps Information types Domains Specialization, integration, customization Specialization Customization Integration so that this misplaced topic in question can then have what are currently the last three topics of "Definitions and background concepts" as sub-topics. Specialization in content/The class attribute/Class attribute syntax -------------------------------------------------------- Third sentence of the second paragraph says: After the starting token are one more blank-delimited values, ending with a blank. Why ending with a blank? What happens if this trailing blank is missing? Is a DITA application supposed to flag this as an error, just return incorrect results, or recover by assuming a final blank? I understand that having the trailing blank makes the XSLT easier to write, but like the "alphabetical order" issue below, this seems like a case where we are adding a requirement on the user just to make things easier for the computer (or programmer), and that's the wrong way around in my opinion. Fourth sentence of the second paragraph says: Each value has two parts: the first part identifies a module package, for example a topic type or domain package name, and the second part (after a period) identifies an element type. Shouldn't that be "after a solidus"? Specialization in content/The domains attribute ------------------------------------------------ Just before the draft comment we suggest alphabetical order, but then the example doesn't seem to do that (or else I can't follow what's meant here). Requiring things to be in alphabetical order seems wrong to me. Computers should do things for people like sorting and handling comparisons; people shouldn't have to do such things for computers. Specialization in content/Generalization ----------------------------------------- As a general comment, we never defined "generalization" in the terminology nor discussed it as a concept in chapter 2, and we don't really mention the term until page 30. Personally, I still don't quite understand either "why generalization" or quite what it is, so assuming I'm not the only one in that boat, I think we should add a section in chapter 2's concepts on generalization. Fourth para, second sentence starts: The generalizer can specify multiple targets in when pass: Probably "when" should be "one". ##################
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