Re: [dita] Re: Discuss list processing expectations

[Eliot Kimber <ekimber@reallysi.com>]

Rodolfo M. Raya wrote:
> On Mon, 14 Apr 2008 14:37:22 -0400
> Michael Priestley <mpriestl@ca.ibm.com> wrote:
> 
>> Semantically the following two constructions are equivalent:
>>
>> <p>There are three things: one, two, three.</p>
>>
>> <p>There are three things:
>> <ul>
>> <li>one</li>
>> <li>two</li>
>> <li>three</li>
>> </ul>
>> </p>
>>
>> If the segmentation rules don't work with the second case, shouldn't that 
>> mean the segmentation rules need updating? This won't be unique to DITA.
> 
> Not necessarily Michael.
> 
> Segmentation rules are usually defined to handle list items as separate
> segments because when an author wants a simple list, the first case you
> mentioned is usually used.

But Michael's point is that the behavior of tools or underspecified data 
formats should not be driving our markup design, as a rule.

It's always seemed clear to me that commercial translation support tools 
(and by implication, the standards that grew out of them to support 
translation memory representation) pretty much only reflect the 
structures needed for DTP-based documents. That makes sense historically 
but shouldn't be too much of our concern as developers of a 
sophisticated data representation standard.

If translation tools or supporting standards are not sophisticated 
enough to handle legitimate and needed XML content structures those 
things need to be improved rather than imposing limits on DITA.

Cheers,

Eliot

-- 
Eliot Kimber
Senior Solutions Architect
"Bringing Strategy, Content, and Technology Together"
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