FW: [dita] Issue for unifying acronyms and glossary

Dear SC members,

Please review Erik's proposal for integrating the acronym 
and the glossary proposals. Consider the difficulties this might present, if 
any, for writers and translators to handle.

JoAnn

 

JoAnn T. Hackos, PhD
President
Comtech Services, 
Inc.
710 Kipling 
Street, Suite 400
Denver CO 80215
303-232-7586


 

 

From: Erik Hennum [mailto:] 

Sent: Wednesday, December 19, 2007 9:16 PM
To: Gershon L 
Joseph; JoAnn Hackos
Cc: Don Day
Subject: Fw: [dita] Issue 
for unifying acronyms and glossary

Hi, Ambidextrous Folk:

Could someone on 
 please forward the attached mail? I 
received a bounce from the OASIS mail agent.

Thanks,

Erik 
Hennum


----- Forwarded 
by Erik Hennum/Oakland/IBM on 12/19/2007 08:14 
PM -----

  
  

    
      
        
          
            Erik Hennum/Oakland/IBM@IBMUS 
              
12/19/2007 06:25 PM

    
      
        
        

          

            
To

          
, 
            

        

          

            
cc

          
"Andrzej Zydron" 
            <>, "Gershon L Joseph" 
            <>, "JoAnn Hackos" 
            <>, "Ogden, Jeff" 
            <>, "Kara Warburton" 
            <>

        

          

            
Subject

          
RE: [dita] Issue for unifying acronyms and 
            glossary

      
        
        

          
          

Hi, Terminology Folk:

I've updated the integrated terminology 
proposal: 

  http://www.oasis-open.org/apps/org/workgroup/dita/download.php/26657/IssueGlossary12026.dita
and, for convenience, the browsable HTML version: 

  http://www.oasis-open.org/apps/org/workgroup/dita/download.php/26656/IssueGlossary12026.html
This version makes the fixes proposed yesterday for the problems 
identified by JoAnn and Gershon on Monday (many thanks) including: 

  
    
Makes <glossdef> optional. 
    
Makes <glossPartOfSpeech> optional (assumed to 
    default to noun if not specified). 
    
Moves <glossSurfaceForm> to <glossBody> and 
    specialize from <p> on the grounds that the surface form will never 
    have usage or linguistic properties; ie, it's better to treat the surface 
    form as a property of the preferred form of the term rather than as an 
    alternate form.

This version also fixes 
some expression issues noticed by Kara (including rewordings and corrections; 
again, many thanks).

I'd request that members of the Translation 
Subcommittee check for requirements that dropped out of this integrated proposal 
inadvertantly. In particular, please take a close look at the section on 
"Translation Issues for Abbreviated Forms" and consider whether the specified 
approach enables translation workbench software as expected.

Finally, 
given that some members of the Translation Subcommittee weren't at the full 
Technical Committee meeting on December 11th and may be wondering why an 
integration proposal even exists, let me summarize the problem that surfaced at 
that meeting.

The acronym proposal as submitted by the Translation 
Subcommittee supports markup like the following: 

  <abbreviated-form 
    id="abs">
<expanded>Anti-lock Braking 
    System</expanded>
<short>ABS</short>
<surface-form>Anti-lock 
    Braking System 
  (ABS)</surface-form>
</abbreviated-form>
The glossary proposal as approved by the Technical Committee in 
November supports markup like the following: 

  <glossentry 
    id="abs">
<glossAcronym>ABS</glossAcronym>
<glossdef>A 
    brake technology that minimizes 
    skids.</glossdef>
<glossBody>
<glossPartOfSpeech 
    value="noun"/>
<glossAlt>
<glossFullForm>Anti-lock 
    Braking 
    System</glossFullForm>
</glossAlt>
</glossBody>
</glossentry>
Obviously, the two markups provide an overlapping set of properties 
about the same thing: 

  
    
Both markups supply a referenceable identifier for the 
    term. 
    
Both markups identify the acronym form of the term. 
    
Both markups identify the full form of the 
  term.

If we can integrate the information 
from both designs, we can eliminate this redundancy problem. DITA adopters will 
be able to declare a term once and have all terminology processes (including 
those we haven't anticipated yet) operate on that single declaration. 

For instance, here's the superset of the two previous examples under the 
current integrated proposal: 

  <glossentry 
    id="abs">
<glossAcronym>ABS</glossAcronym>
<glossdef>A 
    brake technology that minimizes 
    skids.</glossdef>
<glossBody>
<glossPartOfSpeech 
    value="noun"/>
<glossSurfaceForm>Anti-lock Braking System 
    (ABS)</glossSurfaceForm>
<glossAlt>
<glossFullForm>Anti-lock 
    Braking 
    System</glossFullForm>
</glossAlt>
</glossBody>
</glossentry>
Adopters who need all three requirements can use the full set of 
properties. Adopters with an exclusive goal of 

  
    
Glossary publishing can omit the entire <glossBody> 
    
    
Term resolution can omit the <glossdef> and 
    <glossPartOfSpeech> 
    
Termbase population can omit the 
    <glossSurfaceForm>

FWIW, I won't 
be able to do much more on this issue until the first week of 
January.

Thanks for taking a look and best wishes for the ending and 
new year,

Erik Hennum