Re: [dita-lightweight-dita] Promised rewrite

My bad for not going to the full content
- please ignore my note

Michael Priestley, Senior Technical Staff Member (STSM)
Enterprise Content Technology Strategist


From:      
 Kristen James Eberlein
<>
To:      
 Michael Priestley <>,
Carlos Evia <>
Cc:      
 ""
<>
Date:      
 05/29/2017 10:44 AM
Subject:    
   Re: [dita-lightweight-dita]
Promised rewrite

Michael, have you seen working draft #14? It contains
a rewrite.
Best,
Kris

Kristen James Eberlein
Chair, OASIS DITA Technical Committee
Principal consultant, Eberlein Consulting
www.eberleinconsulting.com
+1 919 682-2290; kriseberlein (skype)

On 5/29/2017 10:29 AM, Michael Priestley wrote:
I think there's still a paragraph or
two needed to really focus on the why, rather than the what and how - maybe
something like:

Why Lightweight DITA?

1 Full DITA seen as too complex for some scenarios

DITA is a mature architecture with a deep set of features supported by
a broad range of tools. This same maturity can be intimidating for those
considering adoption, especially for simple scenarios. While lightweight
versions of DITA exist, they are primarily vendor-developed - a standardized
lightweight entry point allows the DITA community to offer a common starting
point for simple DITA scenarios that remains fully compatible with full
DITA solutions.

2 XML not accepted as an authoring platform by some communities

Some authoring communities have strong ties to specific authoring formats,
such as Markdown. While these alternative formats do not always have the
same expressiveness as XML, they bring with them a set of tools and practices
that can be a natural fit with a DITA ecosystem, if we can define a lower-function
level of interchange. Lightweight DITA can provide this mapping, and become
the first version of DITA to be truly cross-format - allowing authoring
and delivery in a mix of native formats all mapped to a common semantic
standard.

How we approached the problem

We identified some key authoring communities that were interested in the
benefits that Lightweight DITA could provide, and mapped out some scenarios
including cross-format authoring and reuse. Lightweight DITA represents
the common denomenator for functionality needed by interested parties in
the following authoring communities: learning and training, SME-authored
software documentation, and marketing content. 

Michael Priestley, Senior Technical Staff Member (STSM)
Enterprise Content Technology Strategist


From:        Carlos
Evia <>
To:        Kristen
James Eberlein <>
Cc:        ""<>
Date:        05/22/2017
10:59 AM
Subject:        Re:
[dita-lightweight-dita] Promised rewrite
Sent by:        <>

I like it very much. I think we should at to the core goals a list item
talking about content sharing and collaboration across formats, shouldn't
we?
And should we have a disclaimer about specialization in the second bulleted
list?

Carlos

-- 
Carlos Evia, Ph.D.
Director of Professional and Technical Writing
Associate Professor of Technical Communication
Department of English
Center for Human-Computer Interaction
Virginia Tech
Blacksburg, VA 24061-0112
(540)200-8201

On Mon, May 22, 2017 at 10:24 AM, Kristen James Eberlein <>
wrote:
Some comments interspersed ... Please note the paragraph and list highlighted
in blue. This is what we need to agree on, flesh out, and ensure that drive
though the document, 
2 Why Lightweight DITA?
LwDITA is a proposed specification for expressing simplified
DITA documents in XML, HTML5, and Markdown. 
The core goals of LwDITA are the following:
Provide a simpler DITA experience
Provide representations of LwDITA in XML,
HTML5, and Markdown that enable individuals to author content in whatever
representation is their preference
Enable the growth of new tools and applications
that support LwDITALwDITA offers the core features
in the DITA standard: 
Semantic tagging
Topic orientation
Content reuse
Conditional publishing
SpecializationHowever, LwDITA
deliberately limits itself to generic structures that are highly applicable
across many industries. This results in a much smaller standard in terms
of elements, attributes, and complexity. 
This pragmatic design has benefits for both small and large
projects, as well as new and existing DITA implementations. The learning
curve for LwDITA will be shorter. Implementing LwDITA might involve less
change management and so lower costs. The ability for engineers to author
in Markdown, marketing writers in HTML5, and technical authors in DITA
will enable collaboration across divisional silos.
Of course, LwDITA users who decide that they need a richer
set of features and functionality for their content can easily transition
to full DITA.

-- 
Best,
Kris

Kristen James Eberlein
Chair, OASIS DITA Technical Committee
Principal consultant, Eberlein Consulting
www.eberleinconsulting.com
+1
919 682-2290; kriseberlein (skype)

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