Subject: Notes from our 30 September call about SVN/build/packages/etc.
Present: Robert, Kris, Stan
Agenda
Started with laundry list from Kris's May 28 e-mail to the list.
Need for volunteers and a distributed work load
Kris reiterated this; Stan suggested that quantifying how much
work and time was involved in specific items might help.
Order in which things need to be done
Some items really have strong interconnections and
inter-dependencies; the following items are intertwined and should
be tackled first
- Consensus on DITA 1.3 packages
- Are these base, technical content, and learning &
training (everything)?
- Are we clear about why we are doing this? (Reducing page
count, reducing appearance of complexity ...)
- Information design for DITA specification versions
- Information design for Contains and Contains by tables
- Separate publication? Appendix? In-topic?
- Working DITA-OT plug-in for producing the OASIS-styled output
formats
- Build scripts
Rationale for DITA 1.3 packaging
Robert: People are making claims about DITA complexity by pointing
to the length of the PDF. Yes, some people still use the PDF; that
was clear from the e-mail threads on the TC e-mail list and
dita-users which Kris started earlier in the year. Would splitting
the content back to arch spec and lang ref do any good?
Contains & Contains by tables
Robert wants to avoid regenerating the tables before there is
RelaxNG from which to build the tables. Could prototype using DITA
1.2 source (but without changing the rows in the table) or might be
able to prototype using the intermediate files used to generate the
DITA 1.2 tables. Kris suggested that we might need two versions of
prototypes -- low-fidelity/earlier and high-fidelity/later -- if we
do not change the table rows.
DITA-OT plug-in for generating OASIS-styled output
(Some of this discussion happened before Stan and Nancy joined
the call.) The plug-in used for building DITA 1.2 spec is fragile
and hacked together. It was build piece-meal (hacked together) by
multiple people working sequentially: Eliot, Seth Park, and finally
Robert. Kris thinks that there are some fundamental structural
issues. It does not work with recent versions of the toolkit, nor
does the plug-in handle filtering with the older version of the
DITA-OT.
Tools
These items can be done later
- Licenses for PDF rendering engines (XEP and Antenna House,
although Kris may have already handled Antenna House
- Tool for generating Contains and Contains by tables (dependent
on design; dependent on RelaxNG proposal and work)
- Tool for zipping up source files for DITA spec (Samalander
DITA Packager is a possibility)
- Review tool (CrocDocs, something Eliot mentioned, Mekon's
DITAweb ...)
Editorial work
The following items from the original list fall into this
category:
- Incorporate DITA 1.2 errata (DONE)
- Handle items from the "Spec fixes and clarifications" Trello
board; this is the board to which Nancy should add any doc
fixes/bugs
Version control
Our SVN repository is a mess; we need to do clean-up and establish
some conventions and processes. This can happen after early
prototyping and design work, but not too much later.
Non-infrastructure work
Edit and rewrite sections of specification that have been noted as
needing this work:
- Edit "Configuration, specialization, and constraints"
- Redo Coverage of subjectScheme and classification
- Redo Coverage of keys
Work that involves the entire TC
Conduct internal TC reviews of DITA 1.3 content (How many reviews?
How should we best organize them?)
Conduct final internal review of DITA 1.3 packages
Action items
Stan: Research what we could do with the current repository.
Robert: Prototypes for Contains and Contains by tables
Robert: Look at current plug-in and assess time/effort to fix it
Nancy: Look through minutes for last 18 months and make sure that
Trello boards contain all necessary cards for bug and doc fixes
Nancy: Get current plug-in running with DITA 1.2 source
Kris: Upload current plug-in to SVN
Kris: Continue with building early prototypes of base, technical
content, and L&T versions of the spec
?: Review e-mail threads about "What version of the DITA 1.2 spec do
you use and why?" (TC list + dita-users)
--
Best,
Kris
Kristen James Eberlein
Principal consultant, Eberlein Consulting
Co-chair, OASIS DITA Technical Committee
Charter member, OASIS DITA Adoption Committee
www.eberleinconsulting.com
+1 919 682-2290; kriseberlein (skype)