The Evolution of DITAs

The Evolution of
DITA(s)
Kristen James Eberlein, Eberlein Consulting
LLC
Keith Schengili-Roberts, DITA Information
Architect, IXIASOFT

Introductions
Kristen James Eberlein
• Eberlein Consulting LLC
• Chair, DITA Technical Committee
• Chief cat header for DITA 1.3
Keith Schengili-Roberts
• DITA Information Architect with
IXIASOFT
 Member on the OASIS DITA Adoption
and Technical Committees

The Need for More Efficient Documentation
• In the 1980s, a Boeing 747’s 129,000 parts
required 31,000,000 pages of documentation

The Weighty Problem of Documentation
• Total weight of
31 million pages:
450 tons
• Total weight of a
747: 437 tons
• These factors
helped push
drive towards
non-narrative
content, XML,
content reuse

IBM and the Birth of DITA
• DITA originally started at IBM as an
attempt to update their internal
SGML-based “BookMaster”
standard
• Switch from book to topic-based
content began as a way to focus on
web content
 Acknowledgement that people were
not necessarily reading content as a
linear narrative
• Typing came from IBM’s guide for
developing technical content taken
to its logical conclusion
• Was released to OASIS to make
integration with other firms (including
possible acquisitions) easier

Companies Where DITA Took Root
• Among the earliest
adopters of DITA 1.0 were:
 Adobe
 AMD
 BlackBerry
 Kone
 Siemens Healthcare
 Nokia
 Xylem
 IXIASOFT

Spread of DITA: Industry Sectors

DITA Ubiquity?
• No, not yet, but
the fact that DITA
is used in over
60 industry
sectors does
speak to its
flexibility and
adaptability

The Difficult Birth of DITA 1.2
• Development of DITA 1.2 within OASIS was … not
well controlled:
 Some incomplete proposal were approved
 Dependencies of some sections were not recognized
until the end
 Much of the weight of spec development fell on a few TC
members
• Number of tags ballooned, adding to perceived
complexity
• As one commentator said, it was “messy”

The Gradual Success of DITA 1.2
• Some immediate success: Learning & Training
• Software vendors were late in providing the
necessary tools
 By late 2013 roughly a third of all the DITA XML editors
listed on DITAWriter.com were still not fully DITA 1.2
compliant

DITA 1.2: December 2010
• Information types:
 Learning & Training specialization
 General task; machinery task
 Subject scheme; classification map
• Architecture:
 Key-based addressing for links and variable text
 Additions to conref; constraints
 Topic and domain integration
• Domains:
 Classification; delayed conref
 Task requirements; hazard statement
• New elements: Many!

DITA 1.3: When Will It Be Released?
December 15 or 16, 2015

The Release of DITA 1.3
• DITA 1.3 “content
complete” as of this
summer
 Only minor
changes/fixes have
been added since then
• Things are on-track for
official release as of mid-
December 2015
• OASIS has publicly stated
that DITA 1.3 can be
considered “done” now

DITA 1.3: What Does It Look Like?

DITA 1.3: Why Three Editions?
• Focus on topic and map as the CORE document
types
• Growth of DITA and emergence of new audiences
• Desire to provide users with targeted packages
that better contain what they need – no more, no
less

DITA 1.3: How Did We Do It?
• Spent six months after release of DITA 1.2
reflecting:
 What worked and what didn’t
 Perceptions of DITA complexity
• Developed new processes
 Three-stage process for approving what went into
1.3
 Required spec content to be written BEFORE approval
 Reduced the number of spec editors
 New review process

DITA 1.3: Review Process Using DITAweb
• Made it easy for people to participate
and for everyone to see ALL
comments
• Very successful, for example,
consider our 1st whole-spec review:
 543 comments (does not include
comments on comments)
 Participation by 19 people and
15/16 voting members (94%).
 Review closed on time (2 week
period)
 We actually had to tell people to
stop adding comments!

Lightweight DITA: Why?
• Full DITA is much more than many need,
especially new markets such as:
 Marketing
 Medical information
• Need to be able to map to content
in other forms:
 HTML5
 Markdown

Lightweight DITA: What?
• An architecture designed to ease implementation
by vendors and adoption by users:
 Easy out-of-the box authoring for common topic types
 Out-of-the box mappings and specifications for authoring
these topic types in other formats, such as HTML5 or
markdown
 Easier specialization

Lightweight DITA: Who is Driving This?

Lightweight DITA vs full DITA
26
Full DITA Lightweight DITA
Topics 94 elements ~30 elements
Maps 10 elements
(+30 shared with topic)
~3 elements
(+1 shared with topic)
<p>What elements are
allowed in a paragraph?</p>
dl parml fig syntaxdiagram imagemap image
lines lq note hazardstatement object ol pre
codeblock msgblock screen simpletable sl table
ul boolean cite keyword apiname option
parmname cmdname msgnum varname wintitle ph b
i sup sub tt u codeph synph filepath msgph
systemoutput userinput menucascade uicontrol q
term abbreviated-form tm xref state data data-
about foreign unknown draft-comment fn
indextermref indexterm required-cleanup
image
ph (phrase)
b (bold)
i (italic)
u (underline)
sup (superscript)
sub (subscript)
xref (link)
data
Slide courtesy of Michael Priestley

Lightweight DITA: When?
• Post-DITA 1.3
• The subcommittee is designing
carefully and thoughtfully
• Has decided to have first iteration
only have topic and map
• As Chair, I’ve encouraged them to
make a first pre-release, test-the-
waters version open SOON.

What’s next: DITA 2.0
• Opportunity for
architectural changes
• For the 1.x releases, The
DITA TC’s hands have
been tied …
• For DITA 2.0, we will
have more freedom …
• It won’t be backwards
compatible …

• What do you mean it won’t be backwards
compatible?!!
• I’m scared that you’ll break all my stuff …
• As best as we can, the DITA TC will avoid
being disruptive and provide migration
strategies

• Examples of changes that are not backwards
compatible:
 Removing deprecated elements
 Redesigning chunking
 Specifying a processing order
 Deprecate the less-frequently-used values for
attributes

Resources: DITA 1.3
• DITA 1.3 specification
The URL links to the most recent official version of the
specification. In October 2015, it links to the Candidate
OASIS Standard, published 3 September 2015.
• DITA 1.3: Why Three Editions?
Working draft 02, 20 October 2015.
• Overview of DITA 1.3
PDFs of presentations given by Kristen James Eberlein
(Eberlein Consulting LLC) at conferences in 2014
• DITA 1.3 Webinar
PDF and link to recording of a Webinar jointly sponsored by
the DITA TC and DITA Adoption TC in August 2014.

Resources: White papers
• Understanding Scoped Keys in DITA 1.3
Authored by Leigh W. White (IXIASOFT); published
September 2015.
• About the DITA 1.3 release management domain
Authored by Tom Cihak (Freescale) and Keith Schengli-
Roberts (IXIASOFT); published June 2015.
• Using DITA 1.3 Troubleshooting
Authored by Bob Thomas (Tagsmiths); published July 2014
• Making the Most of the New Math Domains in DITA 1.3
Authored by Autumn Cuellar (Design Science), published
April 2015.

Resources: Lightweight DITA
 OASIS DITA TC subcommittee
Public page for the subcommittee. Includes publicly-
accessible links to documents, e-mail, subcommittee
minutes, etc.
 LinkedIn group
Forum for discussion of lightweight DITA.
 “Does DITA Need XML?” PDF of slide deck for a
presentation by Michael Priestley (IBM) at tcworld
conference, November 2014.
 Overview of Lightweight DITA (XDITA and HDITA)
Blog post by Michael Priestley, April 2015; updated May
2015.

The Evolution of DITAs

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