A Presentation delivered at DITA North America 2012. The slides, and the delivery, are run through with appreciation for this great family movie. And it was uncanny how well it fit the story of DITA...

1. Beauty &
the BEAST:
Two Paths
to DITA
CMS / DITA North America 2012
Joe Gollner
Gnostyx Research Inc.
jag@gnostyx.com
Copyright © Joe Gollner 2012

2. 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

3. The Happy Valley of DITA
Challenges DITA was
born to solve
End User Documentation
Instructive
Task-oriented
Conditional
DITA as Belle – the Beauty
Multi-channel Totally into Documentation
Addressing these needs in ways that can evolve
Specialization & process overrides for graceful extension

4. 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…

5. 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

6. DITA: Tougher than It Looks
From the outset, DITA proved more scalable in
addressing advanced challenges than first expected

7. Still, It’s Nice to have Backup
It’s time to meet the Beast

8. 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

9. 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

10. 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

11. 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

12. 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”

13. Why bother?
Data
DITA has a specific center Variety
of core capability
Corresponds with
a set of common
content activities
Core DITA
Capability
CM vendors are
providing ever
improving functionality
Processing
Variety

14. The Natural Role of Specialization
Data
Specialization is natural Variety
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)
Model Specialization & Processing
Processing Override Effort Variety

15. DITA Being Stretched to the Limits
Data
Edge Case Scenarios Variety
Call for extensive specialization
& processing overrides
Encounter elevated costs
when stretching DITA
beyond its natural bounds
Model Specialization &
Processing Override Effort Processing
Variety

16. The Bigger Concern: Time
Time is of the essence
Elapsed Time Required
Edge case projects need to
progress even faster than
other projects
Stretching DITA takes too
Level of Effort much time

17. The Beast Shows Itself
Data
Custom XML leveraged to Variety
accelerate modelling &
exploratory prototyping
Available industry standards
leveraged aggressively
Standard DITA Specialized DITA Custom XML
Processing
Variety

18. The Point: Accelerated Development
Modelling & Prototyping
benefit from:
Elapsed Time Required
Time
Leveraging DITA Savings
where the fit is natural
Leveraging custom
XML where new
ground must be
broken
The goal: Level of Effort
Achieve a sound operational solution as quickly as possible
Leverage DITA support where this offers benefits

19. Converging Paths
Data
Once an operational solution Variety
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
Standard DITA Specialized DITA Custom XML Custom
Processing processing
Heavily Specialized DITA
Variety can remain

20. 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 &
The Beast needs to learn to be gentle
technology background when handling document content,
which can be something quite new
Very important where data for teams with a database &
structures exist in transactional technology background
document contexts

21. 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

22. A Happy Ending
Joe Gollner
Gnostyx Research Inc.
www.gnostyx.com
jag@gnostyx.com
The Content
Philosopher Blog
www.gollner.ca
Visual Credits:
http://disney.go.com/
And like most fairy tales, the Beast turns out to be beauty-and-the-beast/
a wealthy aristocrat as well as being a kind-hearted hunk. Great Movie!
What more could you ask for? Gaston is the best!