nfoWorks: Pursuing Harmony

Also from the Cover Pages: XML Daily Newslink for 2008-10-14, there is word of jCAM, an open-source, Java-based CAM XML Processor and Template Editor.  The SourceForge Project has the software; the web site has more information and tutorials.

The focus of the OASIS Content Assembly Mechanism (CAM) TC is on information management of XML documents used for business transactions.  What attracts my attention is that

“The vision of the CAM work is for describing machine-processable information content flows into and out of XML structures … .”

Some of the lingo is opaque to me, but I do have interest in automated approaches that involve

• integration with metadata semantics
• registration of metadata vocabularies
• documentation of information exchange formats
• validation of transaction instances
• runtime creation of valid transaction documents

I may have problems in the validation and filtering of documents and test suites that are not at the proper scale for CAM.  I do think it is worth examining for ideas and applicable techniques.  This is my placeholder reminder for that.

Labels: CAM, nfoWorks, verification

From the Cover Pages: XML Daily Newslink for 2008-10-14, there is announcement that the OASIS Darwin Information Typing Architecture (DITA) Technical Committee has formed a new subcommittee.   The DITA for Technical Standards Subcommittee has the ambitious purpose of furthering and promoting DITA use for the creation, maintenance, and support of technical standards specifications.  The idea is to have a “common standard for the creation and publication of … technical standards specifications:” 

“The first effort will be to assess and define common requirements for the maintenance and publication of technical standards.  This will provide the common requirements for the specific capabilities that DITA should provide.  Finally, the group will create necessary enhancements to DITA standards and deliverables, including the DITA Open Toolkit with a Toolkit for Technical Specifications.”

There is more in the announcement of subcommittee formation on the (semi-official?) DITA online community site.  The official subcommittee operation is to be set up on the OASIS DITA TC page.

I’m not sure that this has any near-term benefit, but it does arouse my interest in another way.  I am finding it very difficult to wrap my head around the current and in-progress OpenDocument Format (ODF) and Office Open XML (OOXML) specifications.  I need some way to wrestle out my understanding in a way that allows me to surface a conceptualization of the functions of either in a way that their reconciliation at the Harmony Principles level can be grasped and described in some useful way.

DITA surfaces on my radar from time to time.  It is something I think I should know more about.  I don’t know how to apply it in the context of standard document formats, nor am I clear how it is applicable to the conceptualization and expression of document-format standards.  It does strike me that some help is needed, based on my early efforts in the analysis of ODF specifications.   (At this point, concept-mapping software might be even more useful, and I will look into that as well.)

It is time to dig deeper into DITA to see how it can support a harmonization effort with regard to office document formats and their harmonizable specification.

Labels: conceptualization, DITA, interoperability

Via the Cover Pages: XML Daily Newslink for 2008-10-14, I learn that the W3C has standards for speech-enabled/-enabling web applications.  The addition announced today is the W3C Pronunciation Lexicon Specification (PLS) Standard.  This is an accessibility as well as a convenience feature.  PLS is intended to work with Text to Speech (TTS) and VoiceXML applications. 

The PLS lexicon is an XML document and there is allowance for blended use with other namespaces.  This suggests to me that there is prospective use in interchange of office-productivity documents for various purposes.

I don’t expect that this will fit into any foreseeable level of harmonized features.  I am placing this marker because it may well feature in accessibility provisions at some point, even if accomplished via a public-profile agreement involving foreign elements.

The accessibility angle is an important one to keep an eye on for its interoperability, interchange, and preservation potential.

Labels: accessibility, document rendering, interoperability