Re: [dita] Stage three: #29 Bookmap update -- Ready for TC consideration

From
Kristen James Eberlein <>
Date
2019-12-03T15:22:36+00:00
ID
Thread
Re: [dita] Stage three: #29 Bookmap update -- Ready for TC consideration
Two other considerations here:

    
      
The TC hoped to include a new publication map for DITA 2.0.
        Whether or not we will manage to do this is an open question ...

      
Because we considered the design of bookmap to be
        fundamentally flawed, we did not want to redesign it. But
        because we know bookmap is used heavily, we wanted to add some
        critical functionality. This is the rationale for updating
        bookmap without breaking backwards compatibility.

        

      

    
    
Best,

      Kris

      

      Kristen James Eberlein

      Chair, OASIS DITA Technical Committee

      Principal consultant, Eberlein Consulting

      www.eberleinconsulting.com

      +1 919 622-1501; kriseberlein (skype)

      

    

    
On 12/3/2019 9:21 AM, Wegmann, Frank
      wrote:

    

    
      
      
      
      

        
Hi Kris et al.

        
Â

        
This bookmap update is the first proposal Iâve
            read now. Being new to the committee, I also wondered home
            some decisions have been made, but then Kris confirmed my
            suspicionsin her replies that it would be appropriate to
            study the previous stage proposals before raising my voice.

        
Â

        
What I can say is that I generally appreciate
            the careful stance on breaking backward compatibility. The
            less hard the migration path, the less work it means to
            adapt production and reeducate authors, if you have dozens
            of them spread globally with hundreds of bookmaps, like we
            do. Iâm sure Robert is very much aware of a practitionerâs
            position like this.

        
Â

        
Of course, progress needs to be made, and I
            especially welcome the addition of ditavalref to the bookmap
            as well as the introduction of the mapresources element.
            And, furthermore, the improved specification text by adding
            âProcessing expectationsâ.

        
Â

        
Thank you for this extension of the bookmap!

        
Â

        
Frank

        

        

          

            
From:
                
                <>
                On Behalf Of Kristen James Eberlein

                Sent: Monday, December 2, 2019 4:35 PM

                To: 

                Subject: Re: [dita] Stage three: #29 Bookmap
                update -- Ready for TC consideration

          

        

        
Â

        
Hi, Gershon.

        
Please see my comments below.

        

          
Best,

            Kris

            

            Kristen James Eberlein

            Chair, OASIS DITA Technical Committee

            Principal consultant, Eberlein Consulting

            www.eberleinconsulting.com

            +1 919 622-1501; kriseberlein (skype)

        

        

          
On 12/2/2019 9:17 AM, Gershon Joseph
            wrote:

        

        
          
Hi all,

          
Â

          
I have reviewed this proposal and have a
            few comments (they are general comments not specifically
            related to this proposal. Excuse me if any of these things
            have been discussed in my absence from the TC, in which case
            just refer me to the minutes or other documentation.

          
Â

          
Point #1

          
This proposal does not state why the
            change is being done. Whatâs the motivation for this change?
            Whatâs the business case? I can think of a couple, but I
            think the proposal should mention the business or technical
            need driving the change. Then this text could be lifted
            as-is to the documentation of the standard, which should
            make life easier for the authors of the eventual standard.

        
        
<kje>This is covered in
              the stage two proposal. It would be good if you
              familiarized yourself with the stage 1, stage 2, and stage
              processes. We put considerable time in implementing this
              new process for DITA 1.3 and revising it for DITA 2.0; we
              are pretty satisfied with it.

        
I'm very glad to see you back
              participating on the TC, Gershon, but you will have some
              catching up to do! We've changed a lot of processes since
              I became chair.

        
See:

        
          

            Stage two proposal for #29: 
https://lists.oasis-open.org/archives/dita/201910/msg00097.html

          

            DITA 2.0 process: 
https://wiki.oasis-open.org/dita/DITA_2.0_Proposal_Process_DRAFT
                (ignore fact that URL contains the word DRAFT)

                </kje>

        
        
          
Â

          
Point #2

          
Why are we concerned about keeping
            backward compatibility in a major release? The TC has a
            huge, once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to fix and improve
            things that we could not do with any minor release of the
            standard. If there is a better way to achieve the desired
            outcome, I suggest we do it now and document any backward
            incompatibility we introduce. Iâm concerned about making the
            DTD files more complex simply for the sake of backwards
            compatibility when weâre doing a major release.

        
        
<kje>DITA 2.0 is our
              very first backwards INCOMPATIBLE release. This has scared
              many people in the committee. Accordingly, we are
              committed to documenting backwards-incompatible stuff
              carefully. We also consider how big of an impact a change
              would have and whether it's worth it.

        
In general, we're doing a
              whole lot of clean up and implementing a lot of changes to
              previous design decisions that ended up being less than
              optimal.</kje>

        
          
Â

          
Point #3

          
Point #2 is a good Segway into this
            concern. The standard says the XSDs are the normative
            standard, but our proposals talk about DTDs almost
            exclusively. All of our content model discussions are based
            on how to achieve the outcome via DTDs. If the XSD schema is
            normative, letâs focus our discussion on the XSD
            implementation and optimize that. At this time, the XSDs are
            essentially reverse-engineered DTDs, and donât take full
            opportunity of XSD functionality. For DITA 2.0 I feel
            strongly we should re-architect the XSDs to fully embrace
            the schema functionality and best practices. Many vendors
            have raised this concern with me, so itâs not just me.
            <duck as Robert A throws a large heavy object in my
            direction/>

          
Seriously, Iâm not undermining the huge
            effort Robert and others put into the XSDs, I really do
            appreciate it. What Iâm suggesting is we take on an XSD
            re-architecture at this time before itâs too late.

        
        
Â

        
<kje>Um ... No. You are
              missing facts. RNG is the normative grammar and has been
              so since 1.3. We will not be shipping XSDs for DITA 2.0,
              unless someone steps forward to create and test them. Firm
              decision made already by the TC.</kje>

        
          
Â

          
Point #4

          
The formatting of figure titles is
            confusing. I keep thinking the figure title is a figure
            caption referring to the code sample above, due to the lack
            of space above the title and huge space below. The figure
            title actually refers to the figure below the title. I know
            this is OASIS style, but please, please letâs fix it!!

        
        
<kje>If
              you have specific changes to suggest, I'll point you to
              the relevant plug-in. It lives in a DITA TC Git
              repo.</kje>
          

        
          
Â

          
Besides these gripes, I really like this
            proposal and see how it will make life easier for many
            users. I think weâd use it eventually at Mastercard (my
            current client at Precision Content).

          
Â

          
This is a very well-written proposal. Job
            well done!

        
        
<kje>Thanks.</kje>
          

        
          
Â

          
Gershon

          
Â

          
Â

          

            
From:
                <>
                on behalf of Kristen James Eberlein
                <>

                Date: Sunday, 1 December 2019 at 16:43

                To: DITA TC <>

                Subject: [dita] Stage three: #29 Bookmap update
                -- Ready for TC consideration

          

          

            
Â

          

          
This proposal has been reviewed by:

          
            

              Nancy Harrison, Individual member

            

              Eliot Kimber, Individual member

            

              Eric Sirois, IXIASOFT

          
          
The PDF is attached; the DITA source is available at 
http://tools.oasis-open.org/version-control/browse/wsvn/dita/trunk/DITA-2.0/stage-3/Issue-29-bookmap-update.dita

          

            
-- 

              Best,

              Kris

              

              Kristen James Eberlein

              Chair, OASIS DITA Technical Committee

              Principal consultant, Eberlein Consulting

              www.eberleinconsulting.com

              +1 919 622-1501; kriseberlein (skype)

          

        
        
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