RE: [dita] Attribute Generalization

["Paul Prescod" <paul.prescod@blastradius.com>]

 

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From: Michael Priestley [mailto:mpriestl@ca.ibm.com]
Sent: Tuesday, April 18, 2006 7:29 AM
To: Paul Prescod
Cc: dita@lists.oasis-open.org; Esrig, Bruce (Bruce)
Subject: RE: [dita] Attribute Generalization

Generalized values go in the props attribute, and roughly correspond to the syntax already described for the otherprops attribute.

Paul, I agree that it is simpler to just ditch the promise (that generalized content can still be processed in a specialized way) than to deliver on the promise. 

I didn't say that we should ditch that promise. I said that we should ditch the promise that the result of generalization will always be DTD-valid. A copyright inserting process does not need a DTD. An editor does need a DTD, but it needs the most specialized DTD (and the specialized content) if it is to maintain the validity of the content.

As a reminder, the rationale for specialized processing of generalized content has to do with sharing content between systems and organizations that may include a mix of specialization-aware and specialization-unaware processing. This is not a hypothetical situation, it's one we already have in IBM, and it's one of the promises that make DITA robust enough to deliver cross-enterprise and cross-organization content sharing.  

I did not know that you had implemented systems that do generalization/specialization round tripping. Can you describe some of them?

 

 Paul Prescod