Comments for Publishing with Silicon http://www.publishingsilicon.com Max Dunn's electronic publishing blog: reconciling information and rendition technologies Fri, 25 Jun 2010 15:33:22 -0700 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.8.6 hourly 1 Comment on DITA to take over the world… by Don Day http://www.publishingsilicon.com/2010/06/dita-to-take-over-the-world/comment-page-1/#comment-361 Don Day Fri, 25 Jun 2010 15:33:22 +0000 http://www.publishingsilicon.com/?p=171#comment-361 I'm 100% in agreement with your thesis, Max. DITA was informed on by the experiences and requirements of the technical documentation community, but designed to be general and extensible at the same time. Today, the end-to-end tools for DITA technical writers offer users a good choice of mature, robust capabilities. There are many other possible applications for DITA, a few of which are represented by the standing Subcommittees of the OASIS DITA Technical Committee, such as Learning Content, Pharmaceutics, and Machine Industry. I am anxious to see tools and services reach out to the unique needs of those communities, and many others as well. I expect the DITA 1.2 era will see greater use of refactoring and specialization to adapt DITA for those unique applications. Watch for DITA to be taken up by companies as a content standard across the enterprise, such as for policies and procedures, project records, and white papers. There are some exciting new uses coming up! -- Don Day, Chair, OASIS DITA Technical Committee I’m 100% in agreement with your thesis, Max. DITA was informed on by the experiences and requirements of the technical documentation community, but designed to be general and extensible at the same time. Today, the end-to-end tools for DITA technical writers offer users a good choice of mature, robust capabilities.

There are many other possible applications for DITA, a few of which are represented by the standing Subcommittees of the OASIS DITA Technical Committee, such as Learning Content, Pharmaceutics, and Machine Industry. I am anxious to see tools and services reach out to the unique needs of those communities, and many others as well.

I expect the DITA 1.2 era will see greater use of refactoring and specialization to adapt DITA for those unique applications. Watch for DITA to be taken up by companies as a content standard across the enterprise, such as for policies and procedures, project records, and white papers.

There are some exciting new uses coming up!
–
Don Day,
Chair, OASIS DITA Technical Committee

]]> Comment on Adobe Learns XML, Slowly by davidjmcclelland http://www.publishingsilicon.com/2009/11/adobe-learns-xml-slowly/comment-page-1/#comment-39 davidjmcclelland Tue, 05 Jan 2010 00:20:16 +0000 http://www.publishingsilicon.com/?p=51#comment-39 Thanks for pulling this info together and providing context. Thanks for pulling this info together and providing context.

]]> Comment on The Two Perspectives on XML by admin http://www.publishingsilicon.com/2009/11/the-two-perspectives-on-xml/comment-page-1/#comment-6 admin Tue, 01 Dec 2009 07:53:15 +0000 http://siliconmax.wordpress.com/?p=5#comment-6 Yes I should have described more of just what differentiates the document- and data-perspectives... in general:<ul> <li>The XML I see in the data world tends to be message-oriented: often a very flat structure, usually much smaller files, relational data wrapped in tags, SOAP messages, WSDL, etc. Developers usually love tools like XML Spy: they vastly prefer schema to DTD, and as structures are often defined automatically they don't see much value in human-readable schema. </li> <li>Document-centric XML has to handle, um, documents, with characteristics such as component reuse, hyperlinking, cross-references; the things DITA handles are generally relevant only to this side of XML. Many in the document-centric world still hand code DTDs; those that understand Schema all prefer RELAX NG to the junk that the W3C came up with.</li> </ul> Of course both are XML and there are exceptions both ways (some messages get as complex as documents, some documents benefit from strong typing or namespaces) so it is a continuum without a strongly identifiable border. When we started Silicon Publishing in 2000, we stopped using Xyvision. Initially this was not our first choice but economic reality. However, being forced into early adoption of InDesign automation turned out to be a very good thing. Xyvision was (is?) great! Very fast, great composition, one of the first/best tools to automate typographical craft. I hope SDL keeps it going; they sure have acquired many companies. I still like InDesign Server better as it surpasses the typography/graphics, but I miss the speed. Yes I should have described more of just what differentiates the document- and data-perspectives… in general:
  • The XML I see in the data world tends to be message-oriented: often a very flat structure, usually much smaller files, relational data wrapped in tags, SOAP messages, WSDL, etc. Developers usually love tools like XML Spy: they vastly prefer schema to DTD, and as structures are often defined automatically they don’t see much value in human-readable schema.
  • Document-centric XML has to handle, um, documents, with characteristics such as component reuse, hyperlinking, cross-references; the things DITA handles are generally relevant only to this side of XML. Many in the document-centric world still hand code DTDs; those that understand Schema all prefer RELAX NG to the junk that the W3C came up with.

Of course both are XML and there are exceptions both ways (some messages get as complex as documents, some documents benefit from strong typing or namespaces) so it is a continuum without a strongly identifiable border.

When we started Silicon Publishing in 2000, we stopped using Xyvision. Initially this was not our first choice but economic reality. However, being forced into early adoption of InDesign automation turned out to be a very good thing.

Xyvision was (is?) great! Very fast, great composition, one of the first/best tools to automate typographical craft. I hope SDL keeps it going; they sure have acquired many companies. I still like InDesign Server better as it surpasses the typography/graphics, but I miss the speed.

]]> Comment on The Two Perspectives on XML by Bill Trippe http://www.publishingsilicon.com/2009/11/the-two-perspectives-on-xml/comment-page-1/#comment-5 Bill Trippe Mon, 30 Nov 2009 18:45:02 +0000 http://siliconmax.wordpress.com/?p=5#comment-5 Good thoughts. One question--did you ever get rid of Xyvision? I still see it in a lot of scientific and technical publishing. Good thoughts. One question–did you ever get rid of Xyvision? I still see it in a lot of scientific and technical publishing.

]]> Comment on The Two Perspectives on XML by loarabia http://www.publishingsilicon.com/2009/11/the-two-perspectives-on-xml/comment-page-1/#comment-4 loarabia Mon, 30 Nov 2009 06:54:19 +0000 http://siliconmax.wordpress.com/?p=5#comment-4 Interesting read. I'd love to hear more. I'd be particularly interested in hearing your definition of document-centric XML and data-centric XML along with some examples to get a feel for the nuances you see in the two models and I'd also love to hear your telling of some more of the history and evolution of the standards. thanks for a good read Interesting read. I’d love to hear more. I’d be particularly interested in hearing your definition of document-centric XML and data-centric XML along with some examples to get a feel for the nuances you see in the two models and I’d also love to hear your telling of some more of the history and evolution of the standards.

thanks for a good read

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