Interchange vs. Analysis

[Daniel Emory]

--- mcarr at allette.com.au wrote:
> I consider DITA to be an interchange format. If two
> organisations can figure out how to convert their
own structure > to and from DITA, they can freely
exchange data. Add five more
> organisations and impose the same requirement on
them and everyone can exchange data, whereas in the
past,
> each organisation would have to code the conversion
> for all of their data partners. This is very
powerful and very useful, but it doesn't replace the
structure
> that the organisations use on their own side.
===================================================
I agree completely. The schema should be defined by
the database/CMS requirements that a particular
enterprise has developed to reflect its business
model, not by the content creators, whose job it is to
produce documents which can be parsed on the XML side
into their constituent components for storage in
accordance with the database schema. That requirement
pertains also to the metadata (attributes) needed to
manage the content, including those attributes which
enable content to be selectively retrieved from the
database in response to a user query. In many
documentation systems (ATA, statutory, regulatory, et
al), the principal method which users employ to
retrieve the information thay desire is an unique
number (or numbers) associated with the content of
interest. That means there must be attributes which
which carry this informaton, and those attributes must
not only be used for retrieval, but also to apply the
full and correct numbers to the extracted content. In
other words autonumbering such as that used in
FrameMaker cannot be used to produce the correct
number when a piece of of a document is retrieved.

But the problem with using something like DITA for
information interchange is that it is unlikely the
metadata defined by DITA will match the metadata in
the enterprise's database schema.

Dan Emory & Associates
FrameMaker/FrameMaker+SGML Document Design & Database
Publishing
DW Emory <danemory7224 at sbcglobal.net>