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Re: DocBook and DITA
- From: Dave Pawson <davep at dpawson dot co dot uk>
- Cc: Rajal Shah <rajal at meshsoftware dot com>, Docbook List <docbook at lists dot oasis-open dot org>
- Date: Sat, 16 Apr 2005 14:43:42 +0100
- Subject: Re: DocBook and DITA
- References: <OF813479E3.BBE9A8C1-ON85256FE5.0029864E-85256FE5.003BE4C2@us.ibm.com>
- Reply-to: davep at dpawson dot co dot uk
On Sat, 2005-04-16 at 06:54 -0400, Nancy P Harrison wrote:
>
> As someone involved with both DITA and DocBook, and having used both, I
> don't see incompatibility between them. Rather, I see two XML-based
> architectures developed independently to meet different objectives.
>
> DocBook was developed to meet the needs of technical book publishers, for
> information designed around a hierarchical and linear model, hence the
> 'book' part of the name.
>
> DITA, on the other hand, was designed around a topic-based, authoring
> model focused on reuse of information at the topic level.
>
> So, if you're authoring a book, with the book structure that implies,
> you're probably going to want to use DocBook; it supports a complete
> processing tool stream for authoring and publishing books in multiple
> formats.
>
> If you're authoring topic-based information centers, especially where you
> need to reuse and reorganize your information for different audiences or
> information subsets, DITA is a better fit for that; it was designed for
> that use. And if you have a need to extend the information models to meet
> your specific purposes, DITA is also designed to enable that, while
> allowing reuse of your processing stream.
Excellent description Nancy. Mind if I steal that for the faq?
I hope it won't be a regular question though.
The 're-use' aspect (to me) was the prime discriminant.
I document something (within guidelines), and the DITA environment
is such that that piece of writing can be re-used in many contexts
with little or no re-work.
I'd heard that the project was built to make it easier for
IBM'ers to move towards XML authoring and document cost reductions.
Nancy's point about adopting HTML element naming as a base supports
that.
I've certainly never heard a 'them and us' debate before, DITA
and Docbook. I'm sure, as in any set of users, you will get
the 'mine's better than yours' arguments.
In this case I think its more than likely a minority view.
regards DaveP.