Beauty and the Beast: Two Paths to DITA
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Transcript of Beauty and the Beast: Two Paths to DITA
Copyright © Joe Gollner 2012
Beauty &
the BEAST:
Two Paths
to DITA
CMS / DITA North America 2012
Joe Gollner
Gnostyx Research Inc.
The Path through the Dark Forest
The Happy Valley of DITA
Challenges DITA was born to solve
DITA in a Strange Land
Edge Cases where DITA might be a stretch
Walking towards the Light
Making the case for DITA Alignment
Taming the Specialization Beast
Bringing the benefits of DITA to new domains
The Happy Valley of DITA
Challenges DITA was
born to solve
End User Documentation
Instructive
Task-oriented
Conditional
Multi-channel
Addressing these needs in ways that can evolve
Specialization & process overrides for graceful extension
DITA as Belle – the Beauty
Totally into Documentation
A Heroine with a Touch of Idealism
Some saw in DITA an answer to all
documentation problems
DITA could be used
to model, author,
manage & deliver
all content
It sounds more fun
than it turns out to be…
DITA in a Strange Land
Some documentation
scenarios present
special challenges
Engineering specifications
Complex diagnostics
Research materials
What’s the problem?
The content doesn’t follow
many (or any) of the ideal
patterns for user materials
Verbose, nested, link rich &
overloaded with semantics
DITA: Tougher than It Looks
From the outset, DITA proved more scalable in
addressing advanced challenges than first expected
Still, It’s Nice to have Backup
It’s time to meet the Beast
A Current Case Study: A DITA Edge Case
Healthcare Information
Complex research material
Elaborate decision support scenarios
Overlapping disciplinary controls
Multiple data sources
Lifecycle traceability
Exploratory information products
Little (no) precedent for DITA
deployment for these problems
Numerous standards already exist in the Healthcare sector
Perhaps a different path beckons – into proprietary XML
Proprietary XML? A Digression
A phrase that has been
getting broad usage
Used to denigrate
non-DITA uses of XML
Phrase should be avoided
It is a contradiction
in terms
It downplays the real
benefits of using XML well
Walking Towards the Light
Making the Case for DITA Alignment
If alternative standards exist as starting points
• Why use DITA?
The currency of the phrase “proprietary XML” offers a clue
• The CM industry has been promoting DITA as a common path
• Vendors want to
consolidate the
requirements they
need to support
and understandably!
• So vendors have been
concentrating their
development efforts
on DITA
So DITA Ventures into Uncharted Territory
Applying DITA to
edge cases can be
a challenge
Modelling content
through specializations
complicates an already
complicated process
Prototyping solutions using
class attributes & processing
overrides complicates an already
complicated process
The Beast becomes unhappy
Getting to Know (and Love) the Beast
So what exactly do I mean by
the Beast?
It is an implementation strategy
• One that starts without DITA
• One that models content &
prototypes solutions using
Custom XML
One that seeks to establish & then exploit DITA Alignment
• Adopting DITA content models as “primitives”
• Applying the structural principles of DITA as far as possible
• Reusable components & assembly structures
• Setting the ground work for a later “reunion”
Why bother?
DITA has a specific center
of core capability
Corresponds with
a set of common
content activities
CM vendors are
providing ever
improving functionality
ProcessingVariety
DataVariety
Core DITACapability
The Natural Role of Specialization
Specialization is natural
When data patterns are
close to existing structures
to which they can be
easily associated
(aka specialization)
When the processing
overrides extend or
adapt existing behaviour
in a logical way
(aka overrides)
ProcessingVariety
DataVariety
Model Specialization & Processing Override Effort
DITA Being Stretched to the Limits
Edge Case Scenarios
Call for extensive specialization
& processing overrides
Encounter elevated costs
when stretching DITA
beyond its natural bounds
ProcessingVariety
DataVariety
Model Specialization & Processing Override Effort
The Bigger Concern: Time
Time is of the essence
Edge case projects need to
progress even faster than
other projects
Stretching DITA takes too
much time Level of Effort
Elap
sed
Tim
e R
equ
ired
The Beast Shows Itself
Custom XML leveraged to
accelerate modelling &
exploratory prototyping
Available industry standards
leveraged aggressively
ProcessingVariety
DataVariety
Specialized DITA Custom XMLStandard DITA
The Point: Accelerated Development
Modelling & Prototyping
benefit from:
Leveraging DITA
where the fit is natural
Leveraging custom
XML where new
ground must be
broken
The goal:
Achieve a sound operational solution as quickly as possible
Leverage DITA support where this offers benefits
Level of Effort
Elap
sed
Tim
e R
equ
ired Time
Savings
Converging Paths
Once an operational solution
has been established
Steps can be taken to
align the content models
with DITA
Retroactive specialization
Allows the content to be
managed & maintained using
standard DITA tools
ProcessingVariety
DataVariety
Heavily Specialized DITA
Specialized DITA Custom XMLStandard DITA Custom
processing
can remain
DITA and the Hidden Side of the Beast
DITA offers one
unexpected, but very
important, benefit in these
more extreme cases
DITA helps to introduce
document content to
teams with a data &
technology background
Very important where data
structures exist in
document contexts
The Beast needs to learn to be gentle
when handling document content,
which can be something quite new
for teams with a database &
transactional technology background
DITA has Lessons to Teach
DITA can be used
to introduce technical
teams to the ins & outs
of document content
DITA distills a set
of best practices in
handling content
Provides scaffolding for modelling efforts that mix
data structures with document content
A Happy Ending
Joe Gollner
Gnostyx Research Inc.
www.gnostyx.com
The Content
Philosopher Blog
www.gollner.ca
And like most fairy tales, the Beast turns out to be
a wealthy aristocrat as well as being a kind-hearted hunk.
What more could you ask for?
Visual Credits:
http://disney.go.com/
beauty-and-the-beast/
Great Movie!
Gaston is the best!