Planning for constraints (DITA 1.2)

The DITA 1.2 
constraints feature can help us provide various levels of "strictness" without 
excessive duplication.

 

Some SIDSC users 
will have not XML standard in place for register data. For those companies, 
SIDSC will probably be used in "standalone" mode, meaning all of the 
data-centric elements will be stored in the same SIDSC file, which can be used 
to generate documentation and other design artifacts (RTL, IP-XACT, header 
files, etc.).

 

Others will adopt 
SIDSC as a means to supplement IP-XACT (or other XML) with document-centric 
information. For those users, only a small subset of SIDSC will be 
required.

 

I would like to 
propose that we relax as many of the DTD rules as possible to create an SIDSC 
"base" type and release with two pre-configured constrained variants. So, we'd 
have:

 

SIDSC 
Base: Lowest level of restriction. The only required elements are those 
required to ensure specialization integrity to the DITA base types. This version 
will not be recommended for use as-is, but as the base type for local 
processing/business requirements (implemented as company-specific constraints 
and specializations).

 

SIDSC 
Standalone: Implements the necessary constraints to ensure that the 
schema enforces the minimal amount of form required to generate documentation 
(and present it meaningfully). Other requirements may also exist. This version 
will have many of the constraints already in the DTDs and be the version that 
the architectural and language specification covers. This will be the version 
that the sample stylesheets will support.

 

SIDSC 
Documentation: Supports the document-centric information required for 
adopters using SIDSC in conjunction with other XML (such as IP-XACT). This 
version could be offered and cited by name by IEEE or Accellera (the new owner 
of IP-XACT).

 

 

We can begin this 
work, but it will mean that we cannot release until the DITA 1.2 spec is 
approved, which should happen at the beginning of 2010. On the other hand, I 
dont think we'll be able to release before that time, 
anyway.

 

 

-seth

 

 

--------------------------------------------

seth park

information architect

Freescale Semiconductor, 
Inc.



512.895.2463