I don't really disagree with what Alan wrote below. There
are cases where using ditabases or nesting topics make sense.
The problem I've seen is that users and organizations that
are new to DITA often choose to use ditabases or deeply nested topics for what
I consider the wrong reasons. Often the reason is that ditabases and
nested topics are "easy" since they are similar to what they have
been doing in Word or in docbook or in some other “traditional”
tool. So they adopt a practice of using a ditabase or deeply nested topics
without having to confront the issue of possibly needing to rewrite some of
their content into a topic oriented style or to sort out mixed content within
the same topic (the differences between concept, reference, and task). And they
duck having to learn how to really use and benefit from maps.
The challenge for us is how to find a way to explain best
practices as compared with what is simply allowed. And we have to do this
without confusing new users who may already be overwhelmed with too much new
information as they are getting started.
This makes me think that new users should be encouraged to start
off using maps and avoid using ditabases or nested topics. As they gain more
experience they can choose to use ditabases or nested topics.
For similar reasons I think new users should initially avoid
the use of conref in maps and possibly conref entirely. Later as they gain
experience they can choose to add the use of conref in topics if they wish.
And later still and with even more caution they can choose to use conref in
maps.
-Jeff
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Alan Houser [mailto:]
> Sent: Tuesday, March 25, 2008 2:38 PM
> To:
> Subject: [dita] appropriateness of <dita> root
element
>
> I wanted to add a voice to the discussion towards the end of
today's TC
> call about the effectiveness and appropriateness of the
"ditabase"
> content model and approach to DITA adoption.
>
> Organizations deploy DITA for a variety of reasons. This may or
may not
> include a need for topic-level content reuse. Not every
organization
> will benefit from all of the capabilities of DITA.
>
> In deployments where topic-level content reuse was _not_ a driving
> factor, I've seen organizations struggle to map legacy content to
DITA
> topic types, without a corresponding benefit. (Surely some
benefit, but
> not clearly justified by the required effort to do so). I've also
seen
> organizations compress migration time from years to months by
mapping
> legacy content to the generic DITA "topic" type in
nested structures.
>
> I'm troubled by the characterization that file structures which
contain
> multiple nested topics are "not much better than
Word." The ditabase
> structure allows organizations to achieve multi-channel
publishing,
> metadata- and output-based content filtering, and slashing of
> localizations costs through automated publishing, while minimizing
the
> pain of legacy migration. As a TC, I think we need to take care
not to
> belittle or discourage these benefits or this approach to
migration in
> particular circumstances. Otherwise, we risk sending the message
> (implicitly or explicitly) that DITA is not appropriate except
when
> substantial topic-level reuse is a requirement.
>
> -Alan
>
> --
> Alan Houser, President
> Group Wellesley, Inc.
> 412-363-3481
> www.groupwellesley.com
>
>
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